


Maybe you're better than this

by telekinesiskid



Series: Tadam [1]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Origin Story, Anal Sex, Blackmail, Bullying, Classism, Dissociation, Domestic Violence, Dubious Consent, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, POV Second Person, Punch-ups and Beat-downs, SIKE they are definitely poly, Self-Esteem Issues, Unhealthy Relationships, implied poly, implied rape, mild PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 01:13:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 35,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6032722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telekinesiskid/pseuds/telekinesiskid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To you, he is security. He's an extra pay check, he's a free ride, he's a phone call away, he's a place to say when things at home invariably turn to shit. You can tolerate Tad Carruthers for all that.</p>
<p>(AU where Adam is not an Aglionby student, is dating Tad Carruthers, and has zero to no self-worth before he meets Gansey & co.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's so fun to build a character out of........ literally nothing but a one-off bigoted statement lmao. If anyone here has forgotten who Tad Carruthers is please refer to his wiki [here.](http://theravenboys.wikia.com/wiki/Tad_Carruthers)
> 
> s/o to [kiiouex](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex) for really helping me when I realised what a fuckin time I was in for when I decided to write this <3

You didn’t ask him to hang out. All you sent was: _what are you doing tonight?_ It had in fact _meant_ ‘what are you doing tonight?’, but Tad Carruthers interprets things the Tad Carruthers way, and Tad Carruthers interprets any instigation of a conversation on your end to mean that you want him, desperately, immediately. He didn’t reply; he just showed up unannounced in his Bentley, half an hour later. But to Tad, it’s not unannounced at all. You asked for him and, like a genie, he popped up and made your wish come true.

It bums you out, just a little bit. You’re not really sure how you could’ve been any more careful with your words than you were. You didn’t want this, but he’s already here.

His vehicle teeters on the uneven dirt track, like it’s anxious to roll forward but it doesn’t want another beer bottle thrown at the windshield when it catches some unwanted attention. You don’t bother with a thicker jersey or shoes or wallet; you see the dark panels of his sedan glint and wink at you under the bent street light and, like a magpie, you follow it. You throw a look over your shoulder but your parents faces are lit up blue from the TV set, the room dim and smoky and still. You don’t think they’ll even notice the time pass while you’re out.

You don’t hurry. You watch where you put your bare feet as you walk down the drive and around Tad’s Bentley, into the passenger seat. The familiar scent of Tad Carruthers fills your head before you’re even inside: of too-much-cologne and too-much-gel and a just-cautionary amount of lotion. Some top 40 track you’ve never heard before audaciously booms at you and Tad rolls with the bass, just bops his head to the beat like he wouldn’t hold back if he thought it was cool to appreciate something as simple as music. Tad Carruthers doesn’t care about an awful lot of things, but he does care how absolutely everyone looks at and thinks about and receives him.

You close the door and feel his lazy smile on you. “Hey Parrish.” He says it like he meant to say ‘Hey Asshole’.

“Tad,” you greet meekly. You don’t call him Carruthers to his face anymore; he doesn’t like how impersonal it feels. His friends call him Carruthers but you are not his friend.

“So.” He runs his tongue over and around his gums in that almost unconscious way that he does when he deliberates. “What’d you feel like doing?”

You wonder if he’s just being polite or if it’s a genuine ask. Sometimes he lets you pick where he takes you, sometimes he only presents you with the illusion of choice to placate you. You try your luck anyway. “Can we stop by a drug store?”

He frowns, like running errands isn’t a very erotic activity. “A _drug store?_ What for?”

You turn your entire face to him and watch as his expression becomes extraordinarily _still,_ as though the shadows of the car don’t do very much to wash out the blacks and blues and purples on your cheek, around your eye, where your father’s white knuckles connected with you a few hours prior. Your cheek still smarts, numb and absent, a sullen throb under your mottled skin. You know your eye isn’t swollen shut but only because you can still see out of it.

Slowly, Tad purses his lips and lids his eyes. “…That’s quite the shiner, Parrish,” he mutters, and you can’t tell if he’s upset that you were hurt or if he’s embarrassed that you’ve forced him to confront it. “What did you do this time?”

“Existed.”

You’d meant it as a joke, but he doesn’t like your particular colour of humour. His face twists into something ugly as he looks away from you, out the windscreen. He turns the key in the ignition and the car effortlessly roars to life. “ _Christ_ , you’re a downer.”

As soon as he says it, it feels true. “Sorry.”

The Bentley revs once, twice, and then careers forward, pressing you back into the seat, and you watch out the side mirror the clouds of dust that billow up behind you, as dramatic as they come. Tad drives you into town, from one country to another, and you pass all the familiar trademarks of your particular brand of poverty: parched paddocks, rusted tractors, crumbled chairs, deflated balls, dismembered kid’s toys, glimmers of trash. This is the memorabilia of Henrietta’s poorest outskirts. Your home that will always be home.

Tad’s head drifts to watch the scenery sail past, like he’s on safari.

“What do you need from the drug store?” he asks by way of conversation for the sake of conversation. “You’ve got painkillers.”

You suppose it wasn’t immediately obvious to a boy who thinks owning an umbrella is indicative of how one likes to take it up the ass. “Foundation,” you reply, and Tad snorts with a violent jerk like someone heimlich’d him.

“Is that for your mum or you, you pansy?”

It used to be humiliating, once, but now it’s just another uninspired quip in the sea of homophobic remarks, and its demoralising effect is lost on you. “It’s for this,” you say, turning your marred cheek back towards him, and his eyes flick over to you but they don’t stay. His knuckles tighten on the wheel like there’s some kind of internal debate going on: the desire to act casual and continue to mock you for your ‘queerbait tendencies’, versus the desire to just keep his trap shut. The latter wins out in the end, because he doesn’t say another word – you’re quietly thankful – until he pulls up in front of a drug store that’s somehow still open at this hour.

You don’t ask for the money, but you don’t leave the car until you have it either. You sit nervous with your head down and your itching, fidgeting hands in your lap – you always seem to have dirt under your nails and it never seems to make a difference how short you cut them or how little time you spend in the garage; it’s like every time you scratch your head you actually scratch the earth, shedding it like a second skin – until Tad sighs and fetches his burnished leather wallet from his back pocket. He leafs through his cash, hands you a few notes too many and says, quite earnestly, “Go buy yourself some eyeshadow while you’re at it. A pretty blue to match your pretty eyes.”

Tad Carruthers only knows how to compliment you through ridicule, like if it’s hidden behind five layers of irony and mean-spirited delivery it will somehow negate its implications and absolve him of that label, which he so vehemently loathes. But it’s not the worst compliment you’ve ever received.

It’s probably one of the best, actually.

You take the money and leave the car and enter the drug store, ducking your head against the harsh fluorescent light beams. You stand in a corner for a moment while you do all you can to push your unevenly cropped hair – you wouldn’t have bothered to cut it yesterday if you had been able to predict your father’s demotion –  to your temple, to shade the worst of your bruise from view. You put up the hood from your threadbare jersey too and bury your hands in the pockets, in the hopes that staff will feel threatened by you rather than sorry for you. _You should see the other guy._

You slouch and wander in circles until you find the cosmetics.

Your eyes sweep over the many shades for _white_ on display – nude, ivory, beige, what? – and you feel your face settle into the keen helplessness of a boy who doesn’t know what he hopes to accomplish here. You pick up a random tester pot and brush a little – powder? – cream foundation onto your thumb, which you transfer to the skin on the back of your hand. You rub it in but it’s too orange for you. You try another. Too dark. Too pink.

Tad honks from outside – you know it’s him because he always honks twice in quick succession, almost polite, like a cheery farewell toot, until you see his face in the car ten minutes later and understand it was polite only for everyone else’s sake – and you lose all resolve to find the perfect shade, like the flawless celebrities in the ads insist. Your hand closes around the least worst match to your colour and you walk up to the counter, careful to keep your head low. You slide the money and the foundation forward – you’re reminded a second or third or fourth time that dirt keeps getting trapped under your nails – and you walk away with a decent amount of change. You pocket it.

If anyone noticed your bruises, they didn’t say a word about it.

You mind your head as you climb back into the Bentley and wipe the muted rainbow away from the back of your hand. It stains your jeans, like everything else. “Got what you needed, princess?” Tad coos and you nod. He pulls back out into the street and races for the quiet countryside, presumably back to his property, back to his private sleepout, which resembles a hunting lodge more than a teenage boy’s bedroom.

But Tad Carruthers is nothing if not impulsive and impatient, and he can’t even wait twenty minutes before he says, “You work with cars, Parrish. You know what ‘road head’ is, don’t you?”

You should tell him that automotive mechanics couldn’t be farther from mid-drive fellatio, but you tell him instead, “I once saw a film where a man hit a pothole and his mistress bit it clean off.”

Tad hisses and reels and draws his knees in his seat like you just did. “ _Fucking_ hell, Parrish,” he shouts, but you don’t tell him you’re sorry. “I asked for some road head, not – not a fuckin’ anecdote of how you lost your own damn balls. There are no _potholes_ out here _,_ you fuckin’ fruit.”

Tad doesn’t tell you to, but he unzips himself for you all the same.

You just hope to God there are no potholes.

He senses your hesitance and drives slower, just for you. You unbuckle your seatbelt and lower yourself into the space where your legs would ideally, safely still be, and you lean over into his lap. It’s a fancy car – the gearshift sticks out from the wheel rather than the more traditional place between the seats– so you flatten your chest on the space there easy. He’s as soft as anything – does he expect you to do all the work? – and you palm him for a while, before he’s hard enough to put in your mouth without risk of flopping out. It doesn’t take him long, though, and if there’s one nice thing you’ll say about Tad Carruthers, it’s that he wants this over with just as quickly as you do. He wants it so quick that anyone would miss it if they blinked; that was his sexuality in a nutshell.

It feels oddly intimate, just from the way the car purrs so closely all around you, from under the mats and up your awkwardly-positioned body and out your careful mouth. You freeze as a hand fists in your hair and it takes you a couple of seconds to push your father from your mind, before you can swallow him to the root and hollow your cheeks and make him hiss _“Adam”_ instead of Parrish.

His hips roll and writhe until they soon twitch up into your mouth and then the back of your throat is warm and salty with come. You’ve learnt from experience that it’s easier to just swallow as it comes, rather than to forcibly extract yourself and hack it up, because, honestly, you’ve tasted worst from your mother’s experimental cooking on a lean week. You suck and suck until there’s nothing left and then the hand in your hair returns to the wheel.

Neither of you say a word, as it always is. You clamber back up into your seat and re-buckle and wipe your mouth as Tad keeps his eyes resolutely _forward_ and, presumably, does a rather impressive assortment of mental gymnastics to keep his identity in check. It’s always a quiet time then.

You’re almost asleep with your head on the window when Tad suddenly swears – _“Fuck!”_ – and your immediate instinct is to shield your face and cry “ _wait!”_

Alarm dinks wildly around in your head as Tad unbuckles you – _this is it_ , you think, a low ache in your throat, tears in your eyes, nausea burning out your belly like a fiery pit, _he’s going to throw me out of his car_ – but he shoves you _down_ instead of _out._

_“Get the fuck down,”_ he hisses and you scramble to release your shoulder from the belt so that you can do as he says. You throw yourself onto the floor, crawl up and cover your head; you have no idea what’s out there or what else can hurt you and your heart pumps your body full of adrenaline far too loud and fast to reach your brain. You’re a creature of immediacy and threat and instinct; you don’t have any room left to think yourself a way out.

Tad sheds his jacket and tosses it over your head, and part of you believes that you’ll never get out.

The car slows and slows until it comes to a complete stop. A window rolls down and you tremble as Tad leans over you to say, quite cordially, “Taking the missus out for a drive, are you, Gansey?”

You hear a slow, sarcastic laugh from outside the Bentley.

“Carruthers,” someone welcomes, and there’s an undeniable civility to it, but it sounds more than a little forced.

“Doesn’t look like your car broke down,” Tad observes. “You two blowin’ each other in the back seats?”

“Actually,” the other boy – Gansey’s missus? – drawls back, low and amused. “We lie in wait on the side of the road to lure in and prey upon cute little boys like you, _Tod_.”

You can’t tell if it’s the incorrect name or the threat that makes Tad make a noise like he just swallowed a melon, but once he recovers he snaps back, “Go suck a _dick,_ Lynch.”

“Maybe I’ll suck yours.”

“Ronan,” someone wearily sighs.

You remain perfectly still and silent; you’ve excelled at the art of it by now. The rush of your immediate fear ebbs as you listen to the outside banter, your heartrate starts to settle, until you flinch _hard_ at the sound of hands on your side’s rolled-down window, like they want to rip the door off. Carruthers bellows, “ _fuck you, Lynch!”_ over your head as his Bentley pulls forward and then you’re back in motion again. The window whirrs as it rolls back up at the touch of a button you don’t have and Tad angrily yanks his jacket back. He peers down at you between glimpses of the road, as he looks about as furious and flustered as he would if someone had just whipped out their cock. You wonder maybe if someone did. _“Get up, Parrish,_ ” he snarls at you, and then every nerve in your body makes it happen as quickly and gracelessly as possible. Your seatbelt clicks back on.

_He’s angry,_ you think, and you can’t think about anything else. _He’s angry,_ but he’s not your father, no one is your father, only your father has so far proved to be your father. _He’s angry,_ but he won’t hit you, you know that, even as you continue to sit rigid and ready for the first strike. It doesn’t come.

After a while, the tension you hold in your muscles starts to slip away. You try your best to peel back the film of _fear_ from the moment and make sense of what just happened.

You look out the wing mirror but, even if it weren’t so dark, Tad has put too much distance between you and those other boys to see what kind of car they had. You bet it was fancy, like Tad’s.

You finally murmur, “Friends of yours?” and Tad makes a low, guttural noise that almost sets you off once more but doesn’t quite.

“Fagging fucks is what they are,” he spits. “They’re shacked up in some abandoned warehouse factory somewhere, and they just suck each other off, that’s all they do – all day, every fuckin’ day. Fuckin’ assholes – the both of them.”

You glance at Tad. You don’t know if that’s repulsion in his furrowed brow or envy. “They sound like Aglionby boys,” you say.

You make him scoff.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another chapter here we go. um, warning for sex??? ?
> 
> as always, kudos to [kiiouex](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex) for being a swell beta~

You’ve been saving all year for your own car. Not a nice one, like Tad Carruthers’ Bentley, obviously. You want a car that’s reliable, functional, affordable – something that you’ll know how to mend and won’t eat up all your cash with expenses and can still run up a lot of mileage. Something homely, with an odd charm that rubs off on you and no one else.

Tad had offered to bequeath you one of his old ones that he never got around to selling, but you turned it down. You had to admit, there was something just a little bit exhilarating about buying a car with your own money, that you worked hard for, that you _earned._ Something that wasn’t handed to you, something to irrefutably call your own. Something that no one else but you could have a stake in. The car that you’ll leave home in.

But for now, until you can make this dream come true, you’re saddled with your bike.

It’s not quite summer, but you felt a noticeable shift in the weather lately. Last week there was a chill to the breeze and a muted sun and you could bike in a sweater and jeans easy; today your shirt is soaked with sweat, the air humid and stagnant, the sun beating down relentlessly on your back. The pre-summer heat sticks to you like a second skin you can’t peel back, and you do your best to keep up the pace, push one pedal after another, forever onward, because if you take another break then you’ll almost definitely be late to work.

You turn down another street and pulled onto the side of the road, not too far from where you are now, you see an orange Camaro with a black stripe down its middle. You spot its driver standing aside with a puzzled hand to his head and a phone to his ear. It’s an Aglionby boy, you’re sure. The car doesn’t look particularly posh, but he’s in the same tailored dress shirt and khaki pants and polished shoes that make up the uniform.

His back is to you, so he doesn’t notice you pedal by. You know you shouldn’t – you really shouldn’t – but you slow down just to hear him talk on the phone. You catch snippets of a partial conversation: “Yes, I know that… well… -ck me up? Why? What _else_ are you do-… no, out of the question. Because I’ve called them _three_ times this month already; it’s _embarrassing._ ”

He sighs theatrically and turns to lean on the hood. He blinks at you, surprised to see you there. You know that you ought to put your head down and keep moving along, but, against your better judgement, you don’t. You swallow thickly as you dismount your bike and walk it across the empty road to him, the chain _clack-clack-clack-clacking_ at your side, and he continues to level you with a look that comes across as enthusiastically baffled. A faint whine comes from his phone and he murmurs, “I’ll call you back,” into it before ending the call, his eyes never leaving yours. He suddenly beams wide at you. “Hello.”

You didn’t expect him to be so friendly. It pushes you off your guard entirely, like a gust of wind in a dead summer afternoon, and you blink back at him speechless for just a second, the breath catching in your throat. You hate the way your voice betrays your nerves and stammers when you ask, “D-Do you um, need…? Help?”

He chuckles warmly and looks at his car, places a hand on the top. It’s somehow both a condescending and an affectionate gesture. “I’m a little beyond help at this point. Only a miracle or a mechanic can help me now.”

“I’m one of those,” you say bravely, and he looks up at you. His eyes sparkle like he thinks you meant _miracle_ rather than _mechanic._

You’re late to work, but you save him a tow.

\----

You bike to Tad Carruthers’ place when you’ve finished work. You wonder if you should be annoyed with him that he’d intercept you like this and put a call in for company before you even made it home, but then, you don’t think there’s very much waiting for you there anyway. A cold mush of a meal, maybe. A ransom, if you want a hot shower and a light to read by this month. A punch to the jaw, if you want to bring up the cost of alcoholism again.

For a while, you both just eat crisps – he drinks, you don’t – and watch _Girls Gone Wild_ on his plasma screen. He keeps you naked, but you don’t mind, since he considerately raises the room’s temperature a couple of degrees for you, so you’re not tempted to redress or crawl under a blanket. You sit beside him on his bed, completely bare, while he slyly marvels you like you’re the most hideously beautiful creature he’s ever witnessed. His eyes follow the sharp line of your jaw, the dip in your collarbone, the curve of your spine, the way your hands carelessly fall over your knees. You don’t think that you’re very much to look at, but you have seen half a dozen tits flashed at you in so many minutes, and you know that Tad Carruthers hasn’t stopped to marvel a single pair.

You can feel the heat radiate off his body from here, you can hear how his throat sticks as he uneasily swallows. He wants you, but he never asks. He doesn’t know how to initiate without demands, without the undercurrent of a dormant threat. You remember once he tried; he kissed the muscle between your neck and your shoulder, almost tender, but then he immediately retracted like it was a mistake, and he hasn’t come any closer to your face or laid a hand on you ever since. You don’t kiss, you don’t touch; you only fuck. It works as much for you as it works for Tad.

It’s an awkward process, as always, because he can never just say what he wants, and then, if you badly interpret his nonsensical propositional moves, he’ll put himself in a mood that won’t let up until you next see him. You save yourself a lot of the trouble and ask, as he starts to restlessly shift around you, “Do you want me to fuck you?”

You look at him. He shoots you a resentful expression and chucks a condom at your face.

You try to work up the enthusiasm via your hand as you pretend not to notice Tad wet his trembling fingers on a bottle of lube – he made you buy it, of course; you pocketed the change, as usual – and stretch himself for you. It’s not just his fingers; every part of him shakes in anticipation. He’s flushed down to his chest. His cock twitches up to his stomach insistently. You know that it’ll all be over in a couple of minutes, tops, and that’s what finally has you hard enough to peel open the wrapper and roll on the condom.

He lies on his stomach, head down, hands braced, shoulders heaving. His hips press into his sheets and ever so slightly graze back and forth. You fit your palms into the groove of his hips – for a better angle, to steady yourself when you rock into him – and you don’t muck about; you line up and slowly sink into him with the kind of ease that only comes with practice. He tenses under you as you fill him up, and when you’re all the way in, he whimpers like you’ve stabbed him and he sickly, shamefully loves it. He bites his lip on any whines he would consider ‘faggy’, but his breath still spills out in staccato as you fuck him and count down in your head the seconds until you can stop.

It only takes him about two minutes. He starts to quake beneath you and he finally gasps a cry not like his regular cry of ecstasy; it’s more throaty, more desperate, more like you haven’t so much made him orgasm and you have penetrated the very core of him, and he wants you to stay there forever.

Sadly, you don’t. You unearth your erection from his ass and immediately bin the condom while he slumps into his sheets, pacified. You’re halfway across the room to his bathroom when he suddenly sits up and calls, “Where are you going?”

You turn back to face him. “The shower,” you say.

He doesn’t meet your eyes. His eyes are elsewhere. “…C’mere,” he says and you’re compelled to follow, more out of the desire to avoid any potential conflict than anything else, and you come to stand before him. He still sits on the bed, his eyes roaming over you like he’s more disgusted with himself than what he sees, and then his eyes settle on your dick, closer to his face than it’s ever been before. You notice his fingers twitch and rub together anxiously at his sides, and your heart beats faster to think that today could be the day he’ll try to put you in his mouth.

“Touch yourself,” he rasps, voice hoarse. He clears his throat but he doesn’t repeat himself – just looks up at you with an almost vicious need.

You crawl onto the bed and sit back on your knees to take your dick into your hand. You’re not entirely sure how you’re supposed to come with him watching you like that, but you try your best; you close your eyes to him and try to dredge from the depths of your practical mind a sexual fantasy that doesn’t feature Tad Carruthers. Your busy schedule and lack of resources and personal space render you an unimaginative, sexless creature for the most part, but you think for a moment about what it would be like if someone were to touch you. Not to punch you or make you stay where you want to gag, but to actually smooth their careful hands over you like you’re a piece of fine art rather than a piece of trash. Anyone – just anyone – touching you, and nothing hurts.

You come into your hand.

“ _Fuck_ , Parrish,” Tad breathes, and your eyes blink open to see that his cock is gently strangled in his hand, twitching back to life already. He makes a noise like, “You’re–” but he cuts himself off before he can finish. He shakes his head and looks away, face pink, and begins again, “You can shower, but first can you…?”

“I got it,” you murmur and sink between his legs.

As you suck on Tad’s oversensitive dick, you catch a glimpse of the Aglionby crest out the corner of your eye, on the breast of his crumpled blazer by your feet. For just a moment you indulge yourself and imagine what you’d look like wearing it.

You wonder if you’d look quite dashing.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Best Buy is a real American store, right?
> 
> many many thanks to [kiiouex](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex) for being a terrific beta and helping me integrate everything smoothly~~~~
> 
> I greatly appreciate everyone's support!!!! thank you all <3

You wake to the sound of a particularly loud commercial. Like God himself has come down to Earth just to announce how spectacular _Best Buy_ ’s prices are this month.

You yawn and rub the sleep from your eyes, rolling over in the bed. It’s a decently-sized bed – you’re sure it’s more than double the size of yours back home, with triple the thread count – but Tad Carruthers still felt the need to put as much distance between you two as you slept. He’s as far away from you as he can be, practically half-hanging out the bed. But his face is turned to you and peaceful with sleep, his hair a dark, messy mass on his pillow. You’re sure you’ve fallen asleep beside him too many times to count – in his car, in his bed, on his shoulder – but he never allows himself to fall asleep next to you. You wonder what he think will happen if he does, and then you remember that Tad Carruthers does not hold a very high opinion of boys who fuck other boys.

You sit up a little to reach for the remote and that’s when you feel it. You partially redressed before you slept and now you feel the front of your boxers damp, sticky. Your blood runs cold and your arms feel like hollow tubes as you push back the covers and stare at the stains, like you ejaculated in your sleep, without your notice, without your consent. It doesn’t look like the work of a wet dream. You don’t even have wet dreams.

You look at Tad. You’d talk to him about it, but you don’t want to throw around accusations and start any drama. You’re too tired – in your eyes, in your head, in your heart. You have finals to study for, you have a car to earn. You’ve done one job for the week – the job of attending to Tad Carruthers’ every whim – and now it’s time to do the others. You push yourself up out of bed, strip off and head into the shower.

You run the water and just stand under it for a while, relaxing into the high pressure, the steam, the unbroken warmth, the cleanliness of it all. The aroma of pumas and musky soap fills the air, with the hint of mint from the open window, and you’re instantly reminded of Gansey, the Aglionby student you helped yesterday. He smelled quite strongly of mint, for whatever reason. You remember that you could smell it off him, even with your head deep under the hood as you fixed his alternator for him and showed him how it was done, because he had the initiative to ask. _That_ had really shaken your perception of Aglionby boys to the core.

Gansey. You still don’t know if that’s his first name or his last. You’re inclined to think it’s his surname, but you know just how pretentiously posh and old-fashioned some of those names can be. You know that Tad has at least one friend called Reginald.

You suppose you’ll have to ask him next time you meet him.

\-----

It’s been a hard week. Your payslip arrived but precious few dollars filtered through into your savings; your father’s recent demotion meant that you had to pick up his slack to keep the power on, and the microwave took a turn for the worst that almost resulted in a fire. It’s not so shocking; everything malfunctions within the first six months of purchase. Broken appliances are tossed out, only to be replaced with even cheaper, shoddier makes than the first. It’s the cycle of poverty and you know it well. It’s like a pit you’re constantly crawling out of, only when you grasp the surface and inevitably slip, you fall back into a pit that’s just a little bit deeper.

Your father’s at the dive bar, your mother’s with her bed-ridden sister, experimenting with homeopathic remedies. You suppose that if you don’t restock on essentials now then it won’t happen until next week.

You bike to the supermarket late on a Sunday with a list you made yourself, which you purposefully left _beer_ and _cigarettes_ out of – not that you’d be able to buy them anyway, being underage, but you think that’ll cut down the cost substantially. You do the math and carefully keep count of the prices in your head, tallying them up as you do. You know that you’d save more (in the long run at least) if you bought the double packs or took the five for whatever deals, but you just don’t have the money now. Junk food is as cheap and tempting as ever, but you only take what can pass for nutritional. You recall your mother’s advice that you failed to act upon: _never shop when you’re hungry._

The store is mostly empty of shoppers, just half an hour out from closing, but you notice two boys your age messing around in the candy isle. One is in his Aglionby uniform – on a Sunday? Is it a point of school pride? – but the other isn’t. You stop and watch them for a slow, distracted moment as they snicker and chuck packets at each other and bash shoulders, though the plain-clothed boy seems to be doing more bashing than the uniformed one. You feel a small, hopelessly sad pang of jealousy, because they look like they’re having fun. You wonder if all Aglionby boys have fun like this while you study and work.

The pale, fair-haired boy spots you staring and you duck your head, hastily move along. You check your list – plain soap, plain detergent, plain toothpaste, frozen veg, brown rice, beans, potatoes, protein bars – before making your way to the check out. You set down the items one by one and you feel your hands shake as you finally take out your wallet and count what little cash you have. You have even less than you remembered.

Before the clerk even totals the price, you know it’s not enough.

Your face burns with an all-too-familiar brand of humiliation. You try not to tear up as you eye every essential item and decide which one is less essential than the others.

You set aside the protein bars and the clerk accepts your money.

As your items are bagged, you hear the boys in the checkout next to yours, and it puts a resentful stab into your gut to see that they don’t have cash; they have plastic. The plain-clothed boy with the shaved head and the sharp smile fluidly pulls one of many cards from his wallet and swipes it with ease. His pale friend dumps bag after bag after bag of toffees onto the conveyor belt, like it’s funny. The shaved head boy remarks, “You don’t even eat toffee,” and the pale boy responds, “I don’t even eat.”

It’s ludicrous – they don’t even know you, they don’t see you, they don’t care about you – but you feel persecuted. You feel like they’re taunting you, rubbing in their accessible fortunes and affordable luxuries, and you can’t help but feel as they start to laugh that they’re laughing at _you._ Tears threaten to well in your eyes as you part ways with the protein bars – your only snacks between jobs – and take the two grocery bags outside, to your bike. You’re just loading up your backpack – the zip is broken; you’ll have to ride carefully – when the two Aglionby boys slip into a flash charcoal BMW that squeals and speeds away, like it owns the streets. Like it would love to crunch pathetic bikes like yours under the wheels.

It’s a long bike home in the dark that you’re forced to take slow. Your route requires you painfully bike past a lit-up poster ad for Aglionby Academy’s Open Day that has been up for the past week. It’s all soft greys and vivid reds and navy blues, with the raven emblem emblazoned proudly in the bottom corner, the seal of approval. On it, three racially diverse students beam up, eyes directed into the sun, as if they can already see their bright futures and they’re very blinding indeed.

You tell yourself that it’s just for a break, to rest your muscles, but you know exactly why it is that you stop right in front of the ad.

You stare at the poster boys. Your mind wanders back to those students in the supermarket. You think about what it must be like to own a car, to have so much money that you could buy foods you don’t even eat, to never have to count the prices in your head and confidently approach every counter and never worry that you’ll have to choose between food or hygiene. You think about what it must be like to be an Aglionby student.

You can’t help but memorise the date of the Open Day.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tad + Adam = Tadam. Just thought you should all know......... it's v important.
> 
> As always, thanks to my beta [kiiouex](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex) who is a Treasure.

You don’t get ready for school. It’s not unusual for you to stay home the day after one of your father’s drunken episodes; not even your mother comes in to check on you, in case you’re sick. You stay in your room, out of everyone’s way, and it’s only until you hear your father’s vehicle rumble away that you exit your room and claim the small bathroom for yourself.

You do your best to spruce up, given what limited time and resources you have. You use a little more soap that you should – not just to look and smell clean but to _be_ clean – and you spend up to twenty minutes hunched over the sink, peering into the grimy, cracked mirror. You learnt the unfortunate way that if you don’t use your mother’s moisturiser the make-up takes a toll on your skin, so you rub a little of that first, not so much that your mother could notice. You wince as you pat the foundation onto your bruised cheeks, into the hollows of your bruised eyes. You apply it to your whole face – you think you look odd without your freckles – just to be sure it doesn’t look uneven and unnatural, because if there’s one day in your miserable life to make an impression, it’s probably today. All you have to do now is remember not to touch your face.

You return to your room to dress. You don’t own many clothes you would consider _nice_ – most of them you’ve worn to work and they still have the grease spots and oil stains to show for it – but, from the very bottom of your drawer, you unearth a plain button-down shirt and a pair of black slacks that, together, could pass you off for middle-class. You locate a pair of your darkest sneakers – it’s fine, you assure yourself; no one ever looks at other people’s shoes – and then you hit the road.

The bike into town is slow, stiff. Your nerves are wracked. The sun is there, right there, shining down like benevolent oppression, but you still feel cold and shivery all over. You don’t know what to expect. You don’t know what people will think of you, what they’ll say about you when you’ve gone, or even while you’re still there. You don’t know if a chorus of laughter will follow you out. You don’t know if they’ll put a hand to your shoulder and fix you with a stern eye and inform you, brutally honest, that someone of _your_ breeding does not belong in academia.

You almost stop pedalling. You almost think to yourself, incredulous, wounded, _what am I doing?_ You almost turn around and head back home, before you’ve even tried.

Something urges you to at least try.

Aglionby is a lot more expansive up close and in person than in their adverts. You chain your bike to a pole a little ways down from the street number – you would rather people assume you’d walked, because you doubt the “environmentally friendly” aspect of your cheap transportation will be very enchanting to them – and you walk through the impressive wrought iron gates, past a little sign that reads OPEN DAY.

You’re taken aback by the instant beauty of it. The buildings have all the aged grandeur and worn majesty of historical sites, but you can quite clearly see a car park filled with flash luxury cars, fresh from Germany. It’s both timeless and dated. Green ivy crawls up one length of the ashen brick walls and the dusty windows are _dark_ ; they have an almost haunted appeal to them that you can’t seem to draw your eye away from.

You’d keep gaping in awe and appreciating all the little ancient details of the place, if it weren’t for the Volvo honking behind you. You veer off the driveway to let it pass, and it forces you to notice that you’re by no means the only one who’s here for Open Day. You remember that placements are in high demand, and your heart just sinks at the number of well-dressed children and their refined parents that step out from their showy vehicles to totter up to the entrance, where the most gracious students await to greet and serve them. They look like they belong here.

You, though – you look like you should be the parking valet.

 _Don’t,_ you warn yourself. You swallow down all your reservations and doubts and follow them in. _It would be weird now that they’ve seen you if you just turned back._

You scrubbed up fine and put on your nicest, cleanest clothes, but you still feel horribly underdressed. You walk inside and instantly you’re in a sea of pearls, of gold-plated watches, of tailored suits and silk ties and designer dresses, and the backs of your hands start to itch like it’s winter already and they’re badly chapped. Everywhere around you, people make idle chitchat, and it’s all thick European accents and the warm, honeyed enunciation of wealthy Virginians; you don’t hear a trace of Henrietta. You duck your head and shuffle past and people look down on you, as though you ought to have a tray in your hand, and your mind picks up a solitary, panicked thought and runs with it without pause: _I want to leave, I want to leave, I want to leave, I want to leave._

“Adam!”

You stop; your ears prick and your head snaps up. Your eyes roam over the crowded vestibule, terrified, until a careful hand taps you twice on the shoulder. You turn into it and your heart beats faster and slower at the same time, with exhilaration and relief. For just a few seconds, your mind and all the self-doubt bearing down on it quiets.

“Gansey, right?” you try with hesitance, but it’s only to be polite; you haven’t forgotten his name at all. You haven’t forgotten _him._ He’s still the same golden boy that you remember from the side of the road, even out of the sunlight, and the way he beams a brilliant white smile at you – like he’s actually _pleased_ to see you – dazzles you. Even more dazzling is the fact that he seems to remember you, too.

“Good memory,” he says in the same rich, smooth accent that barely moments before had wracked you with nervous chills. He sounds like Virginian old money and he looks about as handsome as old money too, with his effortlessly tousled hair and flawless skin and million-dollar smile. He looks rugged, but only in the way that male models do after hours in hair and make-up, before posing on a set of plastic rocks.

“It’s nice to see you again,” he half-shouts; it’s that noisy in the vestibule now. You’re on your way to tell him, more earnest than you can help, that it’s nice to see him again too, when a tall, heavyset man doesn’t quite realise that you’re a boy and not a dirt-coloured stick and jostles you aside. When you resurface, Gansey takes you confidently by the arm and makes a nod towards what looks like an escape from this pandemonium. You follow him, thankful.

The ornate door leads to an arched stone colonnade that surrounds a whole courtyard, with a fountain and lush bushes in the middle. You balk at it for a moment before your eyes return to Gansey. “I, uh, I was saying that, it’s nice to see you again, too.”

He sincerely beams at you, like it warms his heart to hear you say that. “You’re here for Open Day, I gather?” he asks and you nod, your lips pressing together self-consciously. You may have hidden your bike and your drab, grease-stained clothes from the others, but Gansey has still seen them. “Would you like a tour?”

You blink at him, stunned. It never really even occurred to you that someone would offer to show you around before they asked who your parents are, what breed you are, what you are even doing here.

“Thank you,” you smile, and for a while you let Gansey show you around the massive school, introducing you to a new expanse every few minutes, each more exquisite and achingly antique than the last. Gansey pauses in front of a wall of plaques and framed photographs and prattles off some history about the school, and he talks for a solid seven minutes – you were counting, admittedly – about the traditions the school upholds and the principles it hopes to inspire in its promising set of privileged students. He also points out the trophy his rowing team won last year, when he was still captain.

“Wow,” you say, for perhaps the tenth time in so many minutes, because you’re not really sure what else you can say. You’re beyond amazed; you can’t hope to articulate just how profound this experience is for you. You don’t think he even realises. To Gansey, it’s probably just another tour, with just another polite potential applicant. To you, it’s a way out. It’s a glimpse of pure, unconstrained light, and, in this moment, in this school, anything seems possible.

“Any questions?” he asks, and you pretend to think for a moment while you ponder if now is the time to admit how poor you are.

“Um… what can you tell me about… scholarships?” you ask, your voice low as people walk by, as if it’s a dirty word.

Gansey barely reacts. “I can tell you with certainty that we definitely have them, but that’s about it. You could check the website?”

You feel your face grow hot; you’re just about to run a hand over it when you suddenly remember – _foundation –_ and take your hand away. If the foundation is doing its job correctly then you shouldn’t even need to be worried that he’ll see your face turn red, or any other colour it shouldn’t for that matter. “I’ll… I’ll check the website,” you promise. “But, it’s possible?”

He nods confidently. “Absolutely. High GPA? SAT?”

You’re not entirely sure how to tell him that you have the highest GPA in your entire school, so you don’t. “It’s quite high, I think.”

He smiles at you, like your modesty is admirable. “Extra-curricular activities help.”

“Can I count fixing alternators?” you try and he laughs. For once, it doesn’t at all feel like it’s at your expense. _I made him laugh._ “I, um…” You hesitate, but you force yourself to press on. “I don’t really have a… legacy status, or anything like that. Can… Can you just tell me honestly if that would prevent me from getting in?”

Gansey’s eyes settle on yours and they’re a lot quieter, more sober now than they were just moments ago. Your chest thumps to think that he finally caught on, the penny has dropped, and now he knows the reason you didn’t wear anything nice today is because you can’t _afford_ anything nice. You can’t even afford a car yet; how could you possibly hope to afford yourself a successful future?

The wilful silence of your mind stirs; your anxieties start to flare up like disease again.

He lays a hand on your shoulder. “It might take a little convincing,” he tells you honestly, and you appreciate that, although you feel your determination slip further and further away from you, sucked down by the quick sands of your bottomless worthlessness. “They’d want to interview you, this late coming in. But if you can just show them that you’re dedicated, smart, and hard-working then… then they have absolutely no reason not to let you in. They’d be fools not to.”

You wonder if he said that just for your benefit, but you don’t care; it still makes you smile. Out of nowhere, your heart lifts.

“God knows, they can afford it. And, honestly, if they can’t take you in due to ‘limited positions’ or some nonsense like that, I’ll personally see to it that they kick out some other students who are _definitely_ just wasting everyone’s time.”

You were convinced that that was said aloud for your benefit, when the distant ruckus of boys round a corner, and Gansey’s face wrinkles with distaste as they pound him on the back too hard. They mix some expletives in with “Dick” and “Gagsney” and for a wild second you’re terrified that you’ve been referring to him as “Gansey” incorrectly this entire time – even when you _know_ that his name is Gansey, because it says so right there on his row team’s polished trophy.

“Gagsney?” you try anyway, and he breathes out a groan, like that brief interaction alone has withered his patience away to nothing.

“Just my. Most recent affectionate nickname.” He glances at you, then away. “The story of how I earned _that_ one is for another time. Anyway. Do you have any other questions? Anything else I can help you with, Adam?”

Your heart stutters as he turns all of his attention back to you, like a spotlight heating you up, like his entire world has narrowed down just to you and your needs. You swallow thickly and shake your head. “No.” You clear your throat; your voice sounds too high, too uneasy. You think if Tad Carruthers could see you now, he’d tell you that you’re “being gay” and, for once, you think you actually are. “No, I’ll… I’ll look up those scholarships. Thanks for, well, everything.”

He smiles kindly as he starts to lead you back to the vestibule, past other wanderers. “I do hope you decide to join us,” he says, almost fond, which is ridiculous because he barely knows you.

“I just hope they let me in,” you murmur.

You’re about to open the door and leave when he places his hand on your shoulder again, and you immediately know this distant, familiar feeling, like a forgotten memory returned to you after all these years. Too much physical contact, too many smiles turned sheepish, too slow a goodbye. The way his eyes lid at you, like your very presence makes him warm and drowsy. “Good luck,” he murmurs, and then his hand moves away. Your eyes watch him from over your shoulder as he finds a lost couple and their sulky boy. You listen to him brightly introduce himself, ask names and proffer a tour, like he’s done this a thousand times before.

Part of you thinks, heart sunken like a broken ship, that it was probably just a manipulation tactic to make you feel special.

Part of you thinks, _I really want to see him again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so just fyi I have a [tumblr](http://telekinesiskid.tumblr.com/) if anyone wants to come say hi


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao cool well here's another chapter. Just a head's up - they're poly. Also I'm changing the rating from M to E because yeah it's pretty E, not gonna lie. (not from this chap or anything - just in future). 
> 
> Thanks for reading!!

Most days you feel like a rickety worn machine, powered only by stress. You had imagined the hardest part about applying to Aglionby would be the exhaustive interview, or the difficult entrance exam, or the snub-nosed looks from administrators who didn’t quite understand how a boy the colour of clay, built from the densely-packed dirt of Henrietta, wasn’t immediately escorted off the premises when he walked in. They _were_ hard, but you accomplished them and they’re all behind you now. Those were all quite easy, compared to the relentless strain of having to hide it from your parents, from carefully concealing the evidence that you’re about to change schools. That you’re about to be awarded _thousands_ in scholarship grants, that you’re about to funnel thousands more only into the tenuous promise of becoming someone _better_.

You vow to keep them from it, for as long as you conceivably can, before you’ve even been officially accepted. But you often find yourself in moments where you think you could tell them, when you’re in the eye of the storm and everything seems calm, maybe even open. You sit with your mother and father on the couch – last night’s reheated take-out warm in your lap, _The Price Is Right_ contestants dumb as ever, your father only down one bottle – and they’ll talk without malice, almost understanding, and you’ll think to yourself: _I could tell them. I should tell them. I’m going to go to college, I’m going to be rich, I’m going to leave, I’m going to support them, I’m going to give back, I’m a worthy investment._

But you don’t tell them. You continue to sit there, perfectly still, a monument to stress, tongue thick and mouth dry, and you formulate a million little ways to say, _I’m going to make it better,_ until the moment is gone. The phone rings, or the TV blows out, or your father picks up another three beers, and the discouragement puts you back in your room.

At other times, you watch your father toss a spanner at the back of Tad’s receding Bentley – it came too close; the Aglionby bumper sticker was in full view – and listen to him shout about _“entitled rich prats”_ and _“spoiled little cunts”._ He spits at the dirt before wiping sweat and grease from his brow, and you’re convinced that he’ll do so much more than yell or throw a spanner at you if he ever finds out.

You almost call it off, every time.

But it’s the same as thinking you could ever tell your parents the truth; you just can’t. You’ve worked too hard, you’ve come too far. Even when you have the letter of acceptance tucked away under your mattress. Each time you think you’re contemptible and unworthy and way in over your head, you pull out the proof that you’re _not._ Even the paper feels different – like luxury, like all the prestige you don’t yet have. Your fingers leave black prints all over it, but you don’t care.

Ten years from now, maybe you’ll be too busy and important to fix your own car, let alone everyone else’s.

\----

Exams finish, school closes, and summer arrives in all its muggy, breezeless glory. Insects thrive and chirp in chorus and whir past your ears wherever you bike. Your sun-baked skin turns a couple of shades browner, and you regularly wear a sheen of sweat like another layer you desperately want to peel off. It’s already a hot summer, and you know that if you want to make that school fee deadline on time in a couple of months, you have to work non-stop. You have to save immensely and you have to spend wisely, which is not to say that you haven’t already been doing that for most of your working life. But, this time around, you have to do it better. You can’t afford mistakes. You can’t afford miscalculations. You can’t afford to lose your nerve.

You work hard – harder than you ever have in your entire life. You started full-time work before school even officially ended, and now you spend up to fifty hours a week in the trailer factory. In addition, you pick up any other little odd jobs you can that don’t take up too much of your precious time and still pay decently. It used to be that money was the only real incentive, but now there are so many more: keeping busy, staying out of the house, putting as much distance between you and your father’s drunken fists as possible, delaying each heart-stopping moment you inevitably have to come home to sleep. You still chip into the bills – reluctantly, fretfully – when asked, but you don’t let on just how much money you are making now. It would be seized in a heartbeat. “New fridge,” they’d claim, only to fill up the old one with more and more booze.

You can’t stand the smell, the taste. You retch a little each time Tad tries to offer you one.

Summer drags on and on. You had to forgo your small, achievable dream of a reliable car. This time last year, you were convinced that it would be your last summer you had to bike between town and home, but you had never factored _Aglionby_ into the equation. If you had informed the Adam Parrish of exactly one year before that he was going to be an Aglionby student – a raven boy – he would’ve laughed. He would’ve called you crazy. He would’ve insisted that those blazers looked itchy, anyway.

You bike down the empty country road, feeling like an ant under a magnifying glass. You usually bike when the sun’s down; you’re hardly used to returning home this early in the afternoon, when the sun’s just past its peak and wants to scorch everything it touches. Each car that zooms past offers you a waft of cool air, followed by a spurt of hot exhaust. Time melts as you do, as your landscape does, as you watch the heat waves in the distance dance up from the tarmac.

You can’t push another pedal forward and you have to stop. You dismount your bike and head into a ditch of dry flax and fish an old water bottle out of your backpack. You wish there was at least a tree to shade under, but the place looks like a wasteland. You just lie back and throw your arm over your eyes and pray that you don’t fall asleep and wake up burnt to a crisp.

Cars pass you by without pause, as they always do. Some of them honk madly at you, like your endeavour to bike in blistering heat is amusing or perhaps admirable to them; you’re never sure. Never before has a car slowed or even _stopped,_ but a very rowdy one does. You wonder if it’s perhaps because you’re lying in a ditch, face hidden dramatically, bike capsized beside you. You muster as much effort as you can to raise your arm and flash a thumb’s up, just to let whoever’s concerned know that you’re not dead. Dying, perhaps, but not dead.

The car honks – it sounds more like a grunt than a honk – and you shield your eyes from the sun as you pry them open.

It’s the orange Camaro, with the black stripe. The one you fixed. Gansey’s ride.

You sit up. You see him, princely and boyish as ever, even out of his uniform, as he slams the car door and strides toward you. You see the worry worn into his face from here, and you feel both embarrassed that he has to see you like this and ashamed that he thinks you might actually be hurt.

He ducks down to you and asks, almost breathless, “Are you alright?”

You blink up at him. You’re not really sure what to say. “I’m good. How are you?”

“You’re in a ditch,” he says, voice still strained from worry.

“I took a break,” you attempt to explain as you repack your bag and try to clamber back up. Gansey extends his hand to you and you try not to hesitate as you fit your palm into it; the next thing you know he’s lifted you back onto your feet. Your knees feel weak, sore. Your skin feels damp and burned all over. You think he must see the pain and discomfort in your face so you try to insist, “Really, I’m fine. I was just resting. I’m good to keep going now.”

“It’s almost a hundred degrees.”

You try to wave it off. “I’ve biked in worse.”

“Gansey.”

You both turn to the car and you’re shocked to see there are others in it. One boy with a shaved head and cold eyes and what looks like a tattoo snaking up his neck leans out the backseat window and jerks his chin at you. “Are you gonna give him a ride or what?”

Gansey makes a fretful little noise as he looks back at you. “Uh, wha– would you like a ride?” he offers, nervous but oddly hopeful that you’ll say yes. “Your bike can fit in the boot, I’m sure.”

“We have air conditioning,” another boy calls from behind the shaved head, though you can’t see him very well.

Even without the promise of air conditioning, the ride would’ve been tempting.

“If it’s no trouble?” you ask Gansey, and he beams at you. Not as bright as the sun, but close enough.

You walk your bike to his boot and he helps you haul it inside, since your limbs seem to be too weak from hard labour and heat exhaustion to do it themselves. You slip into the passenger seat – _I wonder if this is a good idea –_ and instantly the doors close, the windows roll up, and the A/C blasts cold air into your face and neck.

Your head tips back and your eyes close. _Bliss._

“Thank you,” you murmur, relieved, and you hear someone laugh behind you, though you don’t much care to see who it is. Probably the other boy. You wonder if it’s the same two you saw in the supermarket a while back.

Gansey starts up the Camaro and it rumbles to life. It rocks you in your seat, not entirely gentle but not rough either, and you have to make a conscious effort to open your eyes and sit up or run the risk of falling asleep. You look over to see Gansey’s smile on you, hands on the wheel. “Is there anywhere you need to be?”

“No.” You said it before you even made the decision to. The only other place you need to visit today is _home_ , and you don’t want to do that until your father has blown out his fury and put himself under with copious amounts of drink. “I mean, whatever lets me stay in this car,” you explain, holding your calloused hand up to the cool air pouring out of the vent.

The Camaro takes off then, pressing you back into the vinyl seat. You’re briefly reminded of _Tad_ – you’re sure you must’ve first met under very similar circumstances – and it puts a lump in your throat, a knot in your stomach.

 _Gansey’s not like that, though,_ your mind whispers. _Gansey’s nice._

As if the universe wants to prove your intuitions right, Gansey glances over his shoulder to the other two boys. He _introduces_ you. “Guys, this is Adam Parrish. He’s the one who helped me fix the Pig, and I gave him a tour for Open Day. Adam, that’s Ronan and Noah.” He points respectively and you peer over your shoulder to look at them. Noah smiles at you like he thinks he’s already made a new friend. Ronan smiles at you like he thinks he’s already made a new nemesis.

“Nice to meet you,” you say politely, turning back to look out the windscreen. You know it’s the boys from the supermarket now but, since they’re Gansey’s friends, you want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they’re different, like Gansey; maybe they’re not like every other Aglionby boy.

“How’s it going, by the way?” Gansey asks, and you look at him. He glances at you and clarifies, “Getting into Aglionby.”

“I got in,” you tell him – your darkest secret drawn out of you so easily – and he smiles at you like he’s so impressed. There’s not at all a lick of surprise in there; you think he was convinced from the very start that you’d make it, before you even decided to work for it.

“I knew you would,” he says. He puts a hand on your shoulder and there it is again: that familiar swell of emotion in your chest, like you’re not even as glad you got in as you are to have impressed him. You don’t think you’ve impressed anyone before. “We’ll show you the ropes when school begins. Maybe we’ll have some classes together.”

You hope that you do, but you also hope that he won’t distract you. You can imagine that a boy like Gansey might be very distracting.

God. He’s distracting you right now.

“So, Adam,” Gansey says casually. “What do you know about Welsh kings?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh I've been getting some real nice comments lately heeee <3 thanks guys for sticking it with me ;)
> 
> anyway it's the return of TAD CARRUTHERS dun dun

You haven’t heard from Tad Carruthers in over a month. It doesn’t particularly bother you; it just strikes you as a little bit odd, whenever you’re reminded that he’s cleanly disappeared off your radar. Your nights were once plagued with booty calls, surprise drop-bys, incessant texts, and now you spend them at home, bored and inexplicably lonely. You wonder if it’s something you said, if your last interaction had ended more tersely than you remember. You wonder if something awful happened, if you ought to stop by his family’s estate and check he’s okay. But a full month has already passed since you last saw him and you reason calmly that if you were actually worried enough to call, you would’ve done it by now. But you haven’t. You just put your head down and kept working and stopped thinking about it.

And then he calls you, out of the blue, sometime around two in the morning.

You wake to the buzz and drone of your cell on the floorboards, and you almost miss the call entirely in the time it takes you to fumble it up to your ear. You already know its Tad before you even hear his voice, before you can even check the number, but you’re far too exhausted to feel either relief or disappointment. “Hey,” you croak.

 _“Parrish,”_ he barks, like an excited mutt. _“Miss me?”_

“Where are you?” Your voice is small and hushed into the phone. You don’t want to draw the attention of your parents, in case they’re still up and about, roaming restlessly, smoking like chimneys. “It’s been a month.”

 _“I’m in Venice,”_ he says, in the kind of careless, offhand way that would accompany a shrug. Like it’s no big deal. _“Already been, but dad’s girlfriend wanted to go. It hasn’t changed since I last saw it. Still lots of water, lots of boats, lots of statues. Lots of Italians. Anyway, just admit it, Parrish – you missed me, didn’t you?”_

He doesn’t phrase it like a question, and the insistence that of course _you_ must’ve missed him just makes you think that you didn’t miss him nearly as much as he missed you.

“It’s probably good that you’re vacationing,” you murmur, pinching at a corner of your pillowcase. You draw a small thread loose. “I’ve been too busy.”

 _“Why are you so_ quiet _?”_

You feel a pulse of irritation, dulled by sleep, go through you. As if he’s never heard of time zones before. “It’s two in the morning.”

 _“Whatever – It’s early over here,”_ he says, and you so envy him that he thinks he can call eight o’clock _early._ _“Busy, huh? At the trailer factory?”_

“Yeah.”

_“Still working hard for that car?”_

It seems silly, in hindsight, to think that he was ever annoyed with you. He seems unwound, relaxed, a little amused, and you wonder if this is an ideal set-up for him. The only way Tad Carruthers could ever have a boyfriend is if he lived out of town, went to another school, and was several degrees removed from his socio-economic class. It seems only fitting that a boyfriend who’s currently over four thousand miles away would add another layer of security.

Your sleep-deprived mind catches up to the rest of you. _Oh, the car…_

“Uh, yeah,” you murmur, and you hope he can’t hear how wooden you are. You hope he chalks it up to your exhaustion and doesn’t pry and goes back to talking about himself some more.

_“You should’ve taken one from me when I offered.”_

“It would just– I want to earn it,” you attempt to explain, but that’s as far as you get. You think, _What’s the point?,_ because you’ve attempted to explain it to him in the past and it may as well have fallen on deaf ears. Tad Carruthers doesn’t grasp the appeal of _earning_ something rather than being handed it for free, and you fear that he never will.

 _“Okay, but you’re still a loser with no car,”_ he points out, and you can’t refute him there.

“The bike’s good for now. Bikes don’t leave a very big carbon footprint.”

_“That’s just what losers with no cars say to make themselves feel better.”_

Your eyes prick sharply to think that Tad Carruthers is perhaps the closest friend you have right now. _Go to Aglionby,_ you think. _Be friends with Gansey._

_“Parrish? You falling asleep on me, you prick?”_

“Probably,” you admit. “I have to get up in two hours.”

There follows a silence on the other end that almost sounds self-aware and ashamed. _“I come back a few days before school starts,”_ he mutters. _“We should… ugh, I don’t know. Go for a drive, or something.”_

Sometimes you wonder if Tad Carruthers actually loves you.

Sometimes you wonder if your mother fell into a drunken stupor before she turned the stove off.

“Sure.”

 _“Yeah.”_ There’s another short silence where Tad tries to work up the nerve to say what he wants to say, and in your tired head you count the cost of the call as the seconds tick up. Mere loose change to him and his family’s fortunes.

He doesn’t even say goodbye; the line just cuts off.

You set your phone on the floor and throw yourself back into sleep.

\----

When you next hear from him, it’s to tell you that he’s here to pick you up. Your phone hums in your back pocket. _We’re going for that drive,_ it says.

You don’t see why not. It’s a lazy, hazy Saturday for you; you’ve already finished up your full-time work and started back on part-time. You made your school fee deadline, but only just, with precious few dollars to spare. Your dad set you a few chores to do by Monday and you idly tinker with scrap metal in the carport out back, full well knowing that you’ll get the bulk of it done tomorrow. You don’t take money as payment from him; the trade-off is an unspoken assurance of respect and civility, however temporary that is.

You tell your mother that you still have last-minute work to do at the trailer factory – sometimes you worry that you’re so practised at lying to your parents – and you walk far down the drive to Tad’s impatient Bentley. You climb in – “Hey, Tad” – and immediately he doesn’t strike you as a boy who’s just come from an extended vacation; his posture is tense, his stare is intense, and his mouth is firmly set. You wonder if you misread the tone of his text.

His eyes roam over your bare arms. “Nice tan, Parrish,” he mutters. “Putting in more hours at the tanning salon?”

“You can just tell me I look nice,” you say, pulling the seatbelt across your chest. It clicks in and when you look back up at Tad, his eyes are incensed. “You don’t have to be an asshole about it.”

“You look like _shit_ ,” he spits.

“Fine.” You roll down the window and rest your elbow on the ledge, looking out across the parched summer pastures. You take a pair of shades from the glove compartment and slip them over your eyes. “Let’s go then.”

The Bentley hurtles forward, knocking you back into the seat. Tad tears through the countryside, knuckles white on the wheel, foot heavy on the accelerator. It’s like he’s in hot pursuit, or trying to outrun an incorporeal assailant.

You don’t talk for a while. You just close your eyes behind the shades and enjoy the wind in your hair, flapping through your shirt, running over your arms and curling around the back of your neck. For the first time in weeks you feel _cool._ Not cool in the sense that you look tan and windswept, with a pair of designer shades on your face and an arm leaning casually out of a flash car. But, of course, that helps too. It’s not often you have people gawk at you for anything other than how dirty or wiry you are. You feel a little thrill at the way the Bentley races past folks who stare at you, envy _badly_ obscured by repulsion. You feel invincible, untouchable, impenetrable. _I want this,_ you think. _One day I’ll have this._

An hour passes and he takes you far out of town. Farther than you’ve ever been, farther than he’s ever taken you. You turn down the radio and look to him, all expression masked by the wide, dark shades. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know,” he says, and he sounds so small and desolate. Like he’s lost completely, but he’s shown no signs of slowing down since he picked you up; every twist and turn had seemed confident, deliberate. Yet he admits he’s burning fuel for no reason other than he can.

“I’m hungry?” you say, more like a suggestion than a statement.

His shoulders lower into a slump. “Yeah… Yeah, fine,” he caves, and you’re instantly pressed hard into the door as he pulls a U-turn. He zooms back in the opposite direction.

You look back at him, then away. You want to ask, but you know better than to ask. He’d never tell you and you already know, so what would even be the point of asking?

He pulls up beside a farmhouse close to the road that has been transformed into a quaint little food stop. Tad hands you an excessive amount for the sandwich or bread roll and Pepsi you had in mind, and you awkwardly pass back one of the fifties. You ask him if he wants anything and he gives a small, weary shake of his head. Every couple or so minutes as you wait for your order you glance back, just to check that the Bentley is still there and he abandoned you. Or driven himself in front of a truck.

When you return to the Bentley, his forehead is pressed into the rim of the wheel.

You eat in silence, even though you’re not hungry. You’re too full of nerves to feel as empty as you did before, but you force the food in and the drink down anyway. There’s nothing else to do. You’re in the middle of nowhere, with a boy who’s stuck in a bad mood, and you can only hope that it will pass soon.

For a few minutes, you think about what happens to queer boys who don’t want to be queer.

You have to put down your sandwich after a while; it’s become too hard to swallow.

“My cousin’s in conversion therapy,” he says suddenly, and you glance at him. You’re not too sure what to say. Any assurances you may or may not have had to console him with are gone, just like that. Then he breaks into what you can only imagine is a hard, forced kind of laughter. “Fuckin’ faggot, right? I always knew there was something off about him. That fuckin’ queer ass fruit.”

“Yeah,” you agree, quiet and reluctant. “Everyone has that one gay cousin, don’t they?”

He scoffs. You think he likes the implication that his family has already outed the gay cousin, and it’s not him.

He picks up. He straightens and turns the key in the ignition – “Let’s head back” – and relief floods through you.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I call this chapter: In Which Tad Carruthers Finds Out Adam Parrish Is Upsetting The "Natural Order"
> 
> I got a lot of really nice comments last chapter!!! thank you again! ^o^ Thank you everyone for reading!! <3

You wake before your parents and take the first shower of the day. It doesn’t feel like your first day as a private school student as you dress in a plain shirt – you would call it ‘stained’ instead of ‘plain’ but, since every shirt you own is stained, you see no reason why you can’t refer to it as plain – and holey jeans and sneakers. You carefully fold and bag your uniform and nestle it deep inside your backpack (one with a mended zipper) alongside your new textbooks. You sling it on and even though the massive weight and size of it bears down on you, you fail to keep the flicker of a hope that lives in your chest in check.  _I’m going to Aglionby,_ you think, again and again, equal parts delirious and bewildered.

You pedal soundlessly out of the carport and down the dirt track, onto the sedated roads to town. The sunrise is already spread thick and warm over the horizon and you try to relish it now before it’ll be fall, then winter, and you’ll inevitably have to bike in the frost and the dark. The weight on your back keeps you slow; the straps press relentlessly into your shoulders, there’s a lopsided corner of a textbook digging into your middle back, and already your cheeks are hot with exhausted determination.

Despite your snail’s pace, you’re still early. But you’re at that optimal time, where you’re not so early that the doors are still locked, but still early enough to beat every other student and most of the faculty. You slip in through a side entrance and locate the nearest bathroom, where you proceed to strip out of your plain clothes and fit into your second-hand – third-hand? Possibly fourth? – Aglionby uniform. Regardless of however many hands it’s passed through, it’s still fine quality. Little holes were worn into the elbows and have been noticeably patched up, but you don’t mind. The sleeve cuffs of the blazer are frayed and the pocket lining feels shredded, but you can’t imagine worrying about anything less trivial. Clearly it bothered the uniform shop clerk, since these flaws  _drastically_ reduced the overall price, but you take them in stride. They’re a part of your character, flecks of your well-worn bootstraps. You stand tall and confident in the rugged _essence_  of a uniform and that’s all that matters.

You stare at your reflection in the natural light pouring in through the frosted window, and you feel like a completely different person. You lookexquisite in your uniform. You don’t look dusty and dirty at all; you look refined. You wet your hand in the porcelain basin and brush it over your hair and you think for a wild, ecstatic second that you could pass for someone better than you are. You’re going to _become_ that person. You’re going to take that which you thought was impossible for someone of your breeding, barely half a year ago.

Your eyes linger for too long on the blazer’s raven crest. You struggle to swallow back a sudden surge of emotion.  _You’re an Aglionby student. You earned this. This was all you._

You pack up your bag and head out to the entrance hall, where you assume you’ll find out which homeroom will be yours for the year. You’re thankful that you have plenty of time to work out your bearings, but you do eventually find your classroom. You stand in the doorway and for a moment you just take in the smell of the place: the varnished wood and musty books, the chalk and fresh in-season flowers, the fine coats and leatherbacks and  _Aglionby._

You deliberately set your bag inside an inconveniently-placed locker and claim a desk and chair on the far-side, middle-back of the room. In your experience, those are the places that are wanted least and, while you’re happy to stride around in your new uniform, you don’t want to draw any more attention from your new fellow students than necessary. You doubt that the private schoolboys are as ill-behaved and outright psychopathic as public schoolboys, and you  _highly_ doubt that the private schoolteachers are as indolent and permissive as public schoolteachers, but you don’t want to tempt fate. You’ll sit yourself out of everyone’s way and keep your head down and work, because that’s why you’re here.

Although, it wouldn’t hurt to have a friend or two.

You’re just refreshing your memory from the summer with a Latin textbook when students start to pour in in clumps. They don’t seem to notice you but you still take care to be subtle when you peek at them. They’re a classy, arrogant bunch. They do complicated and ritualistic handshakes, they stand in doorways and lean on lockers, and they politely wait their turn to boast how they spent their summers this time. You catch words like “yacht” and “Colosseum” and “Antarctica” and “NASA” and “boring”, and you try so hard not to feel envy like a raw, ravenous, snapping thing inside you. You try to focus a little bit harder on a new set of Latin verbs instead.

You jump when a satchel lands on the floor close by and you feel another presence press in over you. Already you’re on the defensive – hackles raised, arms tense and ready to block and punch anyone who wants to mess with you – but then you catch a whiff of mint and you turn to see Gansey fall into the seat next to yours. He smiles broadly as he finishes the last few bites of a granola bar. “Adam,” he greets, familiar and casual, like it’s by far from the first time he’s seen you here, like you fit so easily into his life, like a piece had been missing all along.

You want to punch your heart for all that it starts pounding madly. You tentatively smile back. “Gansey.”

You jump again when his friend – Ronan? – falls into the chair behind Gansey’s, and you both turn to witness him put his feet up on the back of Gansey’s chair. “Ronan,” Gansey admonishes instantly, and it’s very reminiscent of the way your mother talks to the neighbour’s rowdy dog. “Feet down, c’mon.”

To your utter surprise, Ronan does as he’s asked. He notices you watching him and shoots you a sarcastic smile, a false display of civility, and you can’t help but feel that he doesn’t like you nearly as much as Gansey does. You remind yourself that once again that you’re not here to make friends.

“Don’t mind him,” Gansey says, low and dismissive. “It’s his flea collar – drives him mad. Let me see your schedule; I’ll see which classes we have together.”

You feel fantastic. It’s only your first day but you already have Gansey here to help you and no one else seems to mind or perhaps even register that you’re a new face. You wonder if it’s the uniform; you’re sure you would’ve stood out a lot worse if you couldn’t be dressed the same as everyone else. Gansey ticks off on your printed schedule which classes you’ll have some company – you’re thankful to see that it’s quite a few of them – and then you hear a voice, sharp and clear above the rest, and the warmth that had been settled deep in your bones suddenly drains from them. Everything feels cold, the air feels still.

Your eyes find the door and there, you see Tad Carruthers slap a high-five to one of his schoolmates.

You hide your face as he passes. He and his three boisterous, obnoxious friends settle in the very back, a couple of rows behind you, and you desperately hope that Tad hasn’t memorised your every outline that he can spot you a mile away, even in a blazer that’s triple your worth. You can’t hide the slope of your shoulders, the tan of your skin, the badly cropped mess of your hair any more than you can hide the fact that you’re an Aglionby student now.

You dip your head ever lower as his shrill laugh pierces your ears, but you know that it’s useless. If he doesn’t see you now,  _right in front of him,_ then the teacher will alert him to your presence the second they call out “Adam Parrish”.

You hear childish, petulant chuckles and almost oafish guffaws. Someone throws something small but hard at the back of your head; you wince, but you don’t look up. You can’t tell if it was meant for you or Ronan, because you hear Ronan whip around and snap at “Ted” to cut it the fuck out, and from the very corner of your eye you see Gansey turn to stare despondently at them, not about to get involved.

And then you hear someone – not Tad – cry out, “Who the fuck is _that_?”, where ‘ _that’_ is you, and you feel like time itself has come to an excruciating, grinding halt.

 _He’s going to find out sooner or later,_ you tell yourself.  _May as well get it over and done with._

You do your best to unlock your muscles just enough to half-turn and look at them. You watch several faces brim with confusion, like if they just analysed you a little bit harder than they should’ve been able to place you as the son of someone important, but none of them can. You force your eyes onto Tad’s before you can think better of it, and you wish that you hadn’t. You’ve never  _seen_ him look like that before – red-cheeked and open-mouthed and speechless, like he’s just been slapped in the face by someone half his age. He doesn’t know what you’re doing here or  _why_ you’re here or even _how the hell_ you made it here. He looks at you like the only way you could possibly be wearing that uniform is if you fucked another boy and decided to play dress-up in his clothes.

“I’m Adam – nice to meet you,” you say shortly, and then you turn back to the front.

Your eyes close instinctively. You draw tighter in on yourself and brace for a loud noise, a sudden movement –  _something_ – but then your new teacher walks through the door and most students in the room clamber up to their feet. You follow their example.

You flash a bewildered look at Gansey, but he offers you a patient, encouraging smile back, as if to say that this is okay. This how it’s done.

The teacher says, “Good morning, boys,” and the rest of the class drones back, “Good morning, Mr Lewis.”

You all settle nosily back into your seats, heart pounding hard. You still feel eyes burning into the back of your skull and you chance a look back over your shoulder to see Tad still staring you down, brow furrowed dangerously, eyes narrowed and menacing. You’ve never seen him look at you like that before. From him, you’re used to curiosity, and fond condescension, and something sickly close to adoration, but not this. He’s never  _hated_ you.

You have a hard time concentrating in class, but you do your best.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this one took so long guys!!!!!!!! I hope I haven't lost you lmao I'm REALLY determined to finish this one!! I love all your comments - you're all so lovely to me thank you ;-;
> 
> as always, thanks to [kiiouex](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex) for beta'ing!

You don’t see him again for the rest of the day, and all you can think is _Thank God._

It’s not, you think, that you don’t have any more classes with him. It’s just that you went well out of your way to make your presence small, and he perhaps went well out of his way not to draw any unwanted attention to himself. But you can’t imagine why _Tad Carruthers_ would feel the need to tip-toe around you; the very idea that he would do anything other than stomp his feet and rev his engine and call _“Parrish!”_ like he meant to say _“Waiter!”_ is almost laughable.

At the end of the day, Gansey bids you a good afternoon and says just three words that make your heart melt – _“see you tomorrow”_ – as he leaves school, Ronan slouching off after him, hands buried in his pockets like he’s badly concealing weapons. Gansey had asked if you’d want to join them for an hour, and he’d transport you and your bike to your work straight after, but as much as you wanted to say _yes,_ you were alarmed by the amount of homework you were saddled with on the very first day. You told him no, regretful, and he smiled and said not to worry about it. He took it in the way that meant “another time then” and, for the third or fourth time that day, you wondered if you were having heart palpitations.

You head for the antique library after homeroom and studiously complete as much homework as you can, knowing there’s every chance your free time tonight may be ruthlessly taken from you. Any number of things could go wrong: your power could be cut off, your father could blow a fuse, Tad could show up out of the blue…

There’s so much more at stake now – so much more to lose – but you try not to think about it. You just throw yourself into your studies and don’t leave until you absolutely have to.

Most of the students have vacated the premises or returned to their dorms by the time you switch out of your uniform, back into your plain/stained clothes. You fetch your bike from the rusty little rink round back that you doubt most people even know exists. You decide to keep the nice, polished school shoes in your locker, to save on space and weight, and you wonder if maybe you ought to keep your entire uniform here, in case your father or mother ever saw it. Maybe you should just take it home every weekend, to wash. The uniform itself is okay; it’s just the blazer that’s too recognisable. In your neighbourhood, everyone sees ravens as omens, but for entirely different reasons to the rest of the town.

Slowly, careful not to be seen or heard, you bike out of the grounds and out of town, to the trailer factory.

 

You’re barely even twenty minutes into your job when your boss pokes his head in to shout, “Some rich prick to see you, Parrish.”

You drop your tools. For a heart-stopping minute you think it’s _Gansey_ – _how does he know I work here, I didn’t think I’d mentioned it, why would he come to see me, did I leave something behind, is he here to laugh at me –_ and you snatch up a cloth and hastily wipe as much black grime from your suddenly shaky hands as you can before you reach the door.

As you step out into the sun, you have a smile prepared – something halfway between earnest and embarrassed – but then you see who it is and realise the effort was wasted.

A black Bentley is parked askew in the very back of the lot and, leaning against it with crossed arms, is not Richard Gansey but Tad Carruthers. And he looks pissed.

The walk from the factory over to his car – his eyes don’t leave yours; you can see his nails dig into his shirt from here – is the slowest, most painful walk you think you’ve ever taken.

“Parrish,” he spits when you’re not quite near, and you instantly stop; even in front of a busy factory full of nosy employees, you think it’s still probably in your best interests to leave a little distance between the two of you. He looks about ready to bite your head off. His face is still creased with the wicked scowl he wore hours before, and you have to wonder if it’s been like that all day, like he can’t unfix it, like he doesn’t remember how to look relaxed in your company anymore.

Tense silence stretches out between you both. You think he’s waiting for you to say his name, a greeting, an acknowledgement – _something_ – but you don’t. Once he realises that you won’t, he launches into his rant: “Want to tell me what the _fuck_ you were doing in Aglionby today?”

“I transferred,” you murmur, not as boldly as you’d like. “I go there now.”

“No _shit._ ”

He pushes off his car to pace for a moment, hands linked around the back of his head, and you note that he looks _stressed._ He looks about as stressed as he does when you’re in his bedroom, naked, and one of his younger sisters thinks his desperate, enraged insistence that they _fuck off_ is part of a fun game.

You’re on the clock; you don’t have time to watch him unravel. You ask mildly, “Is there a problem?”

“Of course there’s a fuckin’ _problem,_ Parrish _._ _You_ can’t go to Aglionby because _I_ go to Aglionby!”

You know exactly what he means, but you pretend you don’t follow. You pretend it’s not a class issue – more for your own sake than his – and instead you cheaply appeal to his internalised homophobia. “I’m not going to tell anyone.”

He blinks at you. His eyes narrow down to slits. “Oh yeah?” he snarls, “and why would I fuckin’ believe that?”

“Why _would_ I tell anyone?” you ask bluntly. “People would fuck with me, too, Tad.”

He doesn’t seem to buy it. He whips his head back and forth as he continues to pace, fingers nervously pinching the skin of his bottom lip – a bad habit born from stress that shouldn’t flare up before midterms – and his dark eyes bore into the ground like there’s nothing there, just a great big gaping ravine and a plunge to certain death.

“People will know,” he murmurs so quietly that you almost miss it, and you suppress the urge to roll your eyes. “They’ll know.”

“No one is going to _know,_ Tad. People aren’t bloodhounds; they’re not going to smell the gay off you. If we don’t talk, then no one will even know we--”

“Drop out,” he orders, and it knocks the very breath out of you. Your eyes widen at him, incredulous, and for a moment you wonder if you should laugh because surely he’s not being _serious_.  Surely he’s not really asking you to throw away everything you’ve worked for, everything you’re going to _achieve,_ just because he doesn’t like to see you outside of his bed or his passenger side. Surely it’s a joke, a _sick_ joke.

But he suddenly looks at you now, face stubborn, and you know that he’s not joking.

“ _Please,_ ” he cries at you, but it’s far from a plea; Tad Carruthers only knows how to demand. He’s never had to repeat himself and he’s never had somebody tell him ‘no’ before, but you’ve had people telling you ‘no’ your whole life, before you’ve even thought to ask for anything. Your whole face feels hot with humiliation. “Drop out, Parrish, go back to Mountain View. You don’t belong in a place like Aglionby anyway—they’ll eat you alive.”

Your hands curl into fists by your sides. “Will they,” you mumble, incensed.

“It’s too fuckin’ _expensive_ for you. You ought to provide for your family, y’know?”

You suddenly turn to leave; you’re afraid if he says another word to you you’ll deck him, right in front of your boss.

You flinch as he catches you by the arm. “So you’re going to drop out, right?”

You look at him over your shoulder with hard, furious eyes. “ _Fuck. Off_ ,” you hiss, like you have the will but not the voice to scream, and it carries enough venom that his eyebrows shoot up, afraid and bewildered. His hand drops from your arm and, once free, you storm back down the drive to the factory. You don’t watch his Bentley roar away, throwing up veils of dust in its wake.

You tell your boss that you’re taking your break now and you shut yourself into the little grotty bathroom out back. You want to tell yourself that you handled it well, and that his words will just slide off you, like water off a duck’s back, like they all do, but then you catch a glimpse of your reflection in the paint-flecked mirror. You touch a grease stain that somehow had found its way onto your cheek. It was there the whole time you were talking to him.

You screw your eyes shut against the immediate surge of tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at me on [tumblr](http://telekinesiskid.tumblr.com/) if you like ;o


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MORE TAD!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> special thanks to [kiiouex](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex) for beta'ing as per uush, but also for confirming my reservations re the really fuckin stupid overly dramatic scene I had at the end of this chapter................... it was so dumb lmao

The truth is, Tad’s words did not slide off you. They stuck to you, they wormed into your bloodstream, they carried from your heart to your head to your stomach, all at once, and stung at your eyes like a toxin. Of all the offensive things Tad has ever said to you, this had been it: the absolute worst. The implication that you’re not _good_ enough for Aglionby, to socialise and compete with the higher classes, to work for a future with limitless potential. The implication that, after all your family has done for _you,_ you should be giving back. But all they’ve ever given you is bruised eyes and empty stomachs and a bad cough. You had thought Tad Carruthers knew that.

Missed calls pile up and unread texts pour in, day after day after day. Physically, you and Tad couldn’t be further from acquainted. Your social circles are twice-removed, you and your friends take lunch a full twenty minutes before he does, and you nod along as Lynch refers to him as ‘Tud’ in casual conversation. You’re about as distant from him as ‘Carruthers’ is from ‘Parrish’ on the roll. But, according to the incessant buzz of your phone, he misses you in a way he can’t admit to. There’s an Adam Parrish-shaped chasm in his twisted heart, and he feels it so keenly every time he sees the back of your resolutely turned head. You think you’ve received more messages from him in the last week than you have in the entire year or two that you’ve known him.

You swear you feel his eyes on you in class. When you tip back in your chair to stretch, when you sweep into your desk with armfuls of overpriced books, when you lean closer into Gansey’s side to hear his quiet murmur— you know he’s always there, just a few bodies behind you, watching you like prey. But you can never catch him; whenever you do throw a curious glance over your shoulder, Tad’s head is always in motion, just turning back to his textbook or the window or his obnoxious pals who don’t ever seem to shut up.

Once or twice, you notice Ronan’s sharp eyes flick over to you and you very quickly force your head back to the front. You swallow the little lump in your throat and wish that you had more classes with Noah and less with Ronan.

Tad continues to bother you, even when you’re not in his direct line of sight. Your phone drones rhythmically in your jean pocket after only a two hour break, and you know it’s him, because nobody else ever texts you. You’re just at the stovetop; you’re making dinner – mac and cheese that will taste more like the blackened wooden spoon you mix it with – because it’s almost nine o’clock and somebody has to.

You receive a few more texts in quicker succession than usual, to the point where you have to wonder if it’s a call, and you pull up your phone to check. No incoming call, but you catch the last three of sixty-seven unread texts and they read as so: 1) _I’m outside your trailer_ 2) _come outside_ 3) _if you don’t come out I’m knocking on your door_

You receive another text – _I’m coming to you_ – and you feel like dread has just punched its way up your throat.

You run for the door – you dive back only to turn the shove off – and before your parents can ask where it is you think you’re headed, you inform them that dinner is ready; your heart is sagged in your chest, prepared for the inevitability that the portions they dish out for themselves won’t be equal thirds, but at least they let you leave and you batter out the door.

You clear the stairs in one jump. The air outside is just as warm and stagnant as it is inside, and the stress doesn’t help either; you can already feel your thin shirt stick unpleasantly to your back. You half-run to very end of your drive where Tad’s black Bentley lies in wait, concealed by the dark. You note crossly that he hasn’t even left his car yet, let alone made it halfway to your door like he had implied.

You round the car for the passenger side; your hand instinctively flexes for the door handle, but you stop. Something about this whole set-up – the distanced car, the dead engine, the incessant texts, the boy who only pretends to be aloof around other people – unnerves you. There’s enough glow from the orange streetlight behind you that you can stare at your anxious reflection in the black glint of his windows. _Don’t go in,_ the void seems to whisper and, for once, you listen to it.

Tad rolls down the window with a press of a button. In the dark of the car, you see him sat back, proud and ominous, like he’s in the back of a presidential limousine and not the driver’s seat of a sedan. “Parrish,” he spits, exasperated, but you don’t miss the note of relief to it either. “What the fuck are you doing? Get in already.”

You don’t need to consider it. “No,” you say, tone clipped, and you instead bend to lean your folded arms on the ledge. You try to look casual about it. “I’m fine here.”

“Seriously, Parrish, _get the fuck in._ ”

“I said I’m _fine_ ,” you snap at him, and his lips part in astonishment. He stares at you like he doesn’t know who the hell you’ve become, and, truth be told, you don’t either. Your blood feels fiery beneath your skin; a thousand heated words you want say to _Tad Carruthers_ compete with your tireless restraint, but a single thought – _survival_ – keeps them all at bay. You swallow thickly and try to keep your tone even but no less irritated. “Why are you here?”

His eyes narrow; he’s just as frustrated with you as you are impatient with him. One hand fishes into his pocket and it comes back out with that familiar wallet of burnished leather, cracked and worn with age and use. It looks bulgier than you’ve ever seen it—weightier. It pops open and spreads wide, like it can finally breathe, and you can see now that it’s full of green.

“How much do you want?” Tad mumbles, eyes down, and your stomach sinks.

Your head shakes, slowly back and forth. You blink back the prickle in your eyes. “Tad…”

“One? Five? Ten grand?”

He shows you that it’s all there. He removes chunks of hundred dollar notes from his bloated wallet and fans them in his hands, and you count ten, twenty, thirty, fifty—far too much to count. There’s a tight pressure building in your throat and, no matter how many times you try and try and try, you can’t swallow it back. _Money means nothing to him,_ your mind laments. You worked tirelessly all summer to make this kind of money, to pay the difference in what your scholarship couldn’t cover, and Tad is willing to throw all of his away.

He holds out a few thousand to you, but your hands are too stiff to move. You just stare at it like you would at the sun: like it’s _life,_ like it burns. “Take it,” he insists. “You can go to any other fuckin’ school in the area you like. Ridgemont High’s not bad. Christ, I’ll pay your fuckin’ way through _college_ , Parrish. I’ll even get you a fuckin’ _car,_ since you still don’t fuckin’—what kind of fuckin’ mechanic doesn’t own a fuckin’ _car?”_

The bribe brushes your arm and you finally work up the nerve to shove it away; the notes knock from Tad’s hand and spill all down the passenger seat. Thousands and thousands of dollars, right at your fingertips, ripe for the taking, and you don’t want a single dime. If your parents ever knew what you were turning down they’d kill you, because ten thousand dollars is ten thousand more than what you’ll ever be worth to them.

Tad doesn’t pick up the cash. He breaths out hard through his nostrils and his eyes flicker up to you, enraged. “ _Nice_ one, you fuckin’ spazz.”

“I don’t want your _money,_ Tad,” you bite back and the breath catches in his throat. “You can’t bribe—you can’t _control_ me like this. You still don’t _get it,_ do you?”

You wait for a response but he just stares back at you, loudly confused, the nails of his thumb and forefinger stretching relentlessly at the hem of his shirt. His eyes shine but they don’t leave yours, like he thinks he’s meeting a challenge he badly doesn’t want to lose. He looks like he would rather be anywhere but in this exact moment.

“I don’t _want_ to just be handed money,” you explain, for the umpteenth time—you’ve completely lost track of how many precious minutes you’ve wasted on this. “I want to _earn_ it. I want to go to a good school, get into a good college, get a good job, and pay for it all myself. I don’t _want_ to be a fucking mechanic; I want to get out of Henrietta and show everyone who thought I couldn’t that they _seriously_ underestimated me.”

Your eyes burn with the threat of tears, your chest feels raw with emotion, empty of air and full of passion.

Tad Carruthers just stares at you like you’re insane.

You had decided since last week that you would end it. You couldn’t have asked for a more opportune time to tell him than this. “Don’t talk to me anymore, Tad,” you say, much quieter. You rub the heel of your palm into your sore eyes. “I’m calling it off.”

_“What?”_

“ _This_ —whatever this is.” You gesture between him and you and you and him, back and forth, without explanation. In the end, you’ll walk away from Tad Carruthers without ever knowing what exactly you were to each other. “We’re not doing it anymore. I’m too busy and I’m not interested. You can find some other poor boy to pay for sex.” _You should get used to it; you’ll be doing it for the rest of your miserable life when you’re married with kids._

His lips draw back from his teeth in a snarl that never quite comes. “You’re not _walking away_ from me, Parrish! You—you _need me._ ”

You roll your eyes. “ _Goodbye,_ Tad.”

_“Parrish!”_

You push off from the open window and turn to walk away, back to your double wide. You feel hollow and triumphant all at once. _Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come bother me at [tumblr](http://telekinesiskid.tumblr.com/) if you want ;o


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter may as well be called EVERYONE IS GAYYYY
> 
> as always, [wifey](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex) beta'd ;)

You’re busy. You are so unbelievably, hectically busy. If this were still kindergarten and you were asked in soothing tones to summarise your entire nuanced state of being in just one word, you would put down ‘busy’ as both an answer and an excuse to not answer the question.

You’ve always been _busy,_ you suppose, but the year so far in has just been ridiculous. The summer finished brought you no respite; you work three part-time jobs – you’re starting to wonder if the extra tax is even worth it – you study, relentlessly, every evening, and you still have to find the time to restock all the essentials that aren’t booze and ciggies: the only real staples of your parents’ diet these days. But every now and then you notice the cars that zip past you until they’re just blips on the horizon, and you bitterly marvel at them like it’s witchcraft, like the technology is centuries ahead of the time period you’re unfortunately stuck in. You had honestly thought you’d have your own car by now, to make things that little bit easier on you, but instead you made everything terrifically harder. Some mode of transportation that has more than two wheels would _help_ , would cut your commute time in half, but you try to rationalise it away. You don’t need the car. _Cheap things break,_ you remind yourself. Tires would blow out, brakes would stall, engines would overheat. More money and more time you don’t have, down the drain, lost forever.

You’ve been through enough weeks now to roughly calculate it. All in all, you’d say you have about five hours each week free to do whatever it is you want, provided it has no monetary or physical cost. You used to lump that time into the precious few hours you allocate for _sleep,_ but, lately, all you want to do is spend them with Gansey.

You don’t believe in magic, but you believe _Gansey_ believes in magic. You want to think it’s silly, that he could really believe in ancient charted ley lines, brimming with spiritual energy, or that he could believe a Welsh king who’s been dead half a century is just ‘sleeping’, possibly somewhere in the valley, who upon waking can be asked for an impossible favour. But, instead of silly, you find it just a little bit enchanting – perhaps because it’s _Gansey,_ or perhaps because it touches upon a child-like wonder for the fated and the surreal, innocent of the world’s tribulations, that you were never able to experience yourself. Part of you _wants_ to believe but, if magic is indeed real, then it has avoided you your whole life.

 _I’m making my own magic,_ you quietly tell yourself. _Getting out of Henrietta will be the greatest trick I ever do._

 

It’s a Saturday afternoon. You finished a half-day of work at the trailer factory and you weren’t so exhausted that you picked tagging along on another one of Gansey’s Glendower-inspired adventures over going home and back to bed. Though, it’s hardly what you’d call adventurous; his Camaro is parked on the side of the road, which is not an entirely uncommon occurrence, but it’s not due to any mechanical fault or breakdown this time. Today it’s due to foretold supernatural activity in the area.

You stand under the late summer sun with Gansey as he fiddles with a device whose purpose you’re still not entirely certain of. It looks like a smaller metal detector, but Gansey hasn’t yet waved it over anything that could potentially make it beep. Perhaps it’s broken. Or perhaps ley lines are only confined to storybooks and folklore, the stuff of _fantasy_ , but far be it from you to dash Gansey’s hopes and dreams. The more you join him in his relentless quest for a dead king, the more it comes across as a deep-rooted obsession rather than just a quirky hobby. Much like his other habits – chewing on mint leaves for one – you wonder if there’s good reason behind it, if there’s more to it than eccentric aesthetic appeal.

“He’s allergic to bees,” Noah says, out of the blue, and you startle. Your eyes flick over to him; he’s seated in the backseat with the door open, half in the car and half out. He blinks up at you, smile curling shyly on his lips. “Gansey, I mean.”

“Oh.” You nod, not entirely sure what you’re supposed to take away from this particular statement. It’s something Noah does often that you’re still getting used to: his abrupt announcements, like he’s responding to a question no one asked. He’s unsettling sometimes, not just in how translucent and smudgy he is, depending on the light, but in a way you can’t quite pin down – like a cat that stares wide-eyed just over the top of your head at nothing. You almost want to tell Gansey to give his contraption a wave over Noah; he’s the most supernatural thing you’ve ever encountered.

Noah suddenly looks at you like you’ve stood on his toe with malicious intent.

You spot some movement from within the car and peer in. Ronan’s just in the passenger side, his muddied boots up on the dash, shaved skull tipped back on the headrest, eyes lidded but burning. He’s equal parts lazy and coiled, wound to strike, and you wonder for the hundredth time what he thinks will strike him first. For all that Ronan has warmed up to you, according to Gansey – “He doesn’t _hate_ you, Adam, honestly; he’s coming from a place of concern when he tells you that you look like shit” – he still makes you feel largely unwelcome whenever you’re around. He makes you feel like your mother and father too often do: like an intruder in your own home.

“What a blasted, wretched thing,” Gansey mumbles to himself, and you glance over just in time to watch him start to dismantle his apparatus.

“Gansey—” Your hands rush to take it from him before he can further invalidate the warranty. “Let me have a look at it,” you offer, and he relinquishes his hold with a sigh. You turn it every which way in your hands, hunting for the battery compartment, but you can’t seem to locate it. “Did this thing come with instructions?”

“No,” Gansey laments. “I’m afraid I might’ve bought this one from a quack.”

“Oh,” you reply, not at all surprised. “I hope you didn’t lose too much money on it.”

“No, only—” He stops before he can recall its price, and you know there’s only one reason why he would do that: he knows that you don’t want to hear it. Anything upward of twenty dollars you would consider a rip-off, faulty or not, and you suspect from the guilty flash of his smile now that your estimate isn’t even close. “No,” he finishes lamely, hand running over the back of his sun-hot neck. “Maybe I can return it. Though, I suspect the caravan might’ve moved on by now.”

You just stare at him.

“Kidding,” he murmurs. He looks at you, eyes crinkled, warm and fond, and you can’t help the smile that fights its way onto your lips.

“Oh _Christ_ ,” Ronan groans loudly from the Camaro; at first you think he’s groaning at _you,_ but then you follow his gaze out onto the road. You notice it before Gansey does: the approaching white van. You’ve seen plenty like it before but this one in particular – you recognise the number plate – makes every hair on your arms stand on end as it slows down to pass. Tad Carruthers is at the helm and he’s surrounded by his lacrosse team cronies, fresh from practice, still partially uniformed. They all stare at you out the rolled-down windows like if you were any closer they’d spit on you.

“Gansey, Parrish,” the boy half-hanging out the passenger window greets, nodding to the two of you in a show of gentility. The boy’s eyes sweep over the backseat and, for a long moment, he peers at Noah like he can’t quite place him. Noah is undoubtedly an Aglionby student – you find it incredibly bizarre and oddly pretentious that he’d wear the uniform in his weekends – but nobody ever seems to have class with him, including this boy, because he simply moves on to Ronan. “Lynch in there too?” he coos, mocking. “Hard to recognise him without a dick in his mouth.”

A couple of the boys inside snigger, but you notice that Tad doesn’t. He continues to look past them and everything else and stare at you like he’s stared at you all week: like you’ve made the biggest mistake of your life, dumping him. Your eyes sting for reasons you don’t want to identify as you look away.

“Hey. Parrish.” The boy – you don’t actually remember his name but you’re absolutely certain it’s something along the lines of Percival or Ponsonby – reaches into the backseat to pull out a navy blue jumper that looks a little like yours, which went missing a few days ago. You eye it up as he holds it out to you; it has the same faded, tattered, outdated look to it that none of the other jumpers seem to have. “This belong to you? I’d say it looks second-hand, but I think this one’s been through more hands than that.”

More sniggers, more derision, nothing new. The boy doesn’t just throw the jumper to the road like you would expect; he keeps it balled up in his outstretched hand, patiently waiting for you to come closer and collect it. It feels like a trap. It feels like when you shake it out it will have scorpions bundled up inside, or when you put it on it will be covered in itching powder. You keep your mouth pressed into a hard thin line as you scan each and every poker-face and, slowly, cautiously, you approach the van to take back your jumper.

There’s a flash of movement and your eyes wince shut at the splash in your face, on your neck, down your front. You stumble back, blinded, a chorus of laughter erupting; the jumper drops from your shaking hands to rub it out of your eyes – _is it gasoline, is it gasoline, is it gasoline –_ and when you pull them back to look, the liquid is thin, watery, dark brown. Your hands rub at your eyes, at your nose, at your cheeks, at your chin; every inch of you that is still wet _crawls,_ and all you can smell is _fuel, fuel, fuel._

Something hard and plastic bounces off your head and you wince, and wince again when the bottle smacks onto the road and bounces away. Your eyes find the bottle; your rapid pulse and your frantic hands – _get it off, get it off, get if off –_ halt as you take notice of the red label.

Coke.

It was just Coke.

The lacrosse boys howl at your shock; you only think you hear a car door slamming behind you until it’s already happened, and Ronan puts in the barest amount of effort to chase after the van as it propels forward. He swoops down for the empty Coke bottle and impressively throws it just shy of the rear window. He flips them off with both hands as he yells out, in more detail than necessary, exactly what he’ll do with that Coke bottle the next time he sees them.

The shock and primal fear fades and fast on its heels rushes in the humiliation. It’s the shirt, you think. You only ever let your friends see the least worst of your shirts and today it just so happened to be the faded red shirt, uncomfortably small, bearing a brand you don’t even drink, because why would you when water is free. You feel light-headed. You’re so mortified—you think you might be sick.

You put your face in your hands and you don’t come out, even as Gansey sets a sympathetic hand on your shoulder. “Are you alright?” he asks and you nod, because even if you aren’t, you’d never admit to it in front of Gansey and make it true. You don’t want Gansey of all people to see you like this. “I’m sorry about them,” Gansey starts, as if he thinks he can apologise on behalf of the universe for letting it be cruel to you. “They don’t realise I know all their mothers and can have their curfews drastically reduced.”

Your hands finally come away from your face and you try not to dwell on how sticky they are. You show Gansey that you’re still capable of smiling, just to placate him, but the front falls away when you see the state of your shirt – one of the nicest ones you had left. Now it’s just another one of your plain/stained shirts.

“Oh,” Gansey pipes, eager to help, “I have a spare shirt in the back—well, it’s from crew—rowing, that is, but it’s definitely clean if you would like to…?”

You stretch your face in a way that aches, like the rest of you. “Yeah, okay. Thank you.”

Gansey dashes over to fetch his gear while you turn your back to both Ronan and Noah and attempt to collect yourself, in private. You know that it shouldn’t bother you. Ever since you broke it off with Tad, he and his mates have taken every opportunity they can to torment you in their relentless attempts to drive you out. While you haven’t been physically assaulted – no harm comes to you when you stick by Gansey all day – you’ve quietly been the target of threats, insults, and malicious rumours that you would rather deal with yourself. None of your classmates had even noticed you were there until Tad told them that you loved cock, you were white trash, you were out at truck stops in skimpy vests every night, renting yourself out to pay for a school that’s clearly too good for you.

 _Fuck them,_ you think, blinking back tears, breathing slow and steady. _Fuck Tad._

“Adam,” Gansey calls, and you walk over to the open boot where he’s found yet another overpriced piece of the extensive Aglionby uniform. You murmur your thanks as you strip off your sticky shirt and spend too long trying to work out where to put it. You turn to face the others, and when you look up, you’re suddenly very aware of three sets of eyes on your bare torso.

You glance down; at first you think there’s something to explain, like a rippling scar or a mottled bruise, but you don’t see anything like that at all. You peer up at them again, confused, and then it hits you like a flick to the nose: they’re looking at you in the way Tad Carruthers looked at you when he thought you couldn’t see. _Maybe the rumours about them are true…_

You swallow. Your cheeks burn furiously as you take the sleeveless white shirt from Gansey’s slackened hand and pull it on. It’s a little loose on you and a little blindingly white with how _clean_ it is, but Gansey continues to stare at you long after you’ve stopped being shirtless. You can’t meet his gaze; you’re so flustered and flattered all at once that you almost forget why you needed to change shirts in the first place.

“Thanks,” you say again, because no one is speaking, and everyone’s faces are red, and Gansey nods back too quick and too fervent, eyes trained on yours like they’re the only part of you that he can see.

“Not a problem,” he replies, voice a little strained, and you pretend you don’t feel the little wave of pleasure that strokes through you.

You proceed to watch Gansey badly act casual around you and explain away his sudden incompetence while you silently wonder, for the first time in your life, if you’re actually an attractive person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at m e over at [tumblr](http://telekinesiskid.tumblr.com/) my dudes


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> everything from this point on is so incredibly gay and I just-- not even I can deal with it, seriously
> 
> sorry this chapter doesn't really have a whole lot going on!!! just a head's up, it's mostly introspection, but I wanted *something* out before the next chap which is actually shaping up to be long as Heck so..... yeah, sorry, and also more is coming lmao
> 
> as always, thank you to my [long-suffering bae](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex) <3

You gnaw on your bottom lip and pull up your phone. You recheck the message for what must be the tenth time that evening, as though if you stare at it for long enough you’ll uncover some deeper, hidden meaning that you were blind to before. But all Gansey had said was _Want to have dinner tonight?_ and you’d replied, twenty minutes later – the delay wasn’t due to your usual lack of idle time; you had literally spent twenty minutes fussily planning a response, holding backspace on all of your clumsy attempts at communication – with a simple _Sure._ You’d chased it up moments later with a smiley-face, because the one-word response looked far too unenthusiastic on its own; you’re a complete bundle of nerves and an absolute wreck of hormones, but if there’s absolutely one thing you’re _not,_ it’s unenthusiastic.

You scroll to the most recent texts. He’d asked for your home address and you had, however reluctantly, handed over the name of your drive and nothing else. _I’ll pick you up at seven,_ he replied, and you still don’t know if his lack of comment on your dingy and impoverished residence was careful, deliberate, or if he just doesn’t know the area well enough to not expect a suburb. Maybe he simply doesn’t care, because he’s _Gansey,_ and he acts like he wouldn’t mind if he had to crawl into a sewer just to see you.

Seven, he’d said. It was seven o’clock now, and still no word.

You pace and you pace and you pace in your room, back and forth, hands linked behind your bowed head, your stomach in a knot. You don’t know what to expect. You didn’t know whether to interpret his text as a _date_ at the time, and you’re afraid you’ll walk away from the whole painfully casual excursion none the wiser. You still don’t even know if Noah and Ronan will be there; they usually _are,_ of course, as his ever-present loyal subjects, but Gansey never made any mention of them. Did he take their presence for granted and forget to say they’re coming, too? Did he purposefully make no reference to them because they won’t be there? You don’t know and it’s driving you up the wall. You don’t want to make a fool of yourself, you don’t want to get your hopes up, but you can’t stop thinking about your night ending with the murmured words “I had fun” and “let’s do this again sometime” and the warm press of his lips—

You pace about restlessly. You can’t think about that— if you think for even just a second more about Gansey’s mouth then your chest will swell so hard and fast that it will burst.

You showered, less than an hour ago. You absolutely needed it; today your trousers suffered a particularly bad oil spill and your hands didn’t make it out of the clean-up too well either. You scrubbed under your nails alone for at least ten minutes. Gansey knows by now that your work requires you to get your hands dirty, but if there’s any chance tonight that he’ll be holding them then you want them to be as clean and dry and soft as they can possibly be. You ended up in the exact same set of nice-ish clothes from the Open Day – the same plain button-down shirt, the same black slacks – and you sincerely hope enough time has passed that he doesn’t remember. You know he doesn’t expect you to have a surplus of sharp ensembles, but you want him to think that you at least own more than _one._

You don’t have a mirror in your room, but you wish that you did now. You wish you could check that you looked okay. You wish you had more time to scrape the black gunk from under your nails. You wish you had nicer clothes. You wish you could impress him. You wish you knew whether or not it was a date.

A little voice trickles through the nervous buzz in your skull: _It’s not a date,_ it says. _Why would Gansey want to date someone like you? Gansey has been handcrafted from gold; you’re like a snowman made of dirt._

You force yourself to believe that Gansey is beyond caring what your roots are. It’s where you’re going that counts.

Your phone thrums in your hand. Gansey’s message reads _I think I’m here?_

You look out your unwashed window, heart fluttering like a trapped bird in your ribcage. From a distance, in the hazy pastels of the sunset, you can see a stripe of vivid orange from his Camaro, and, between it and the cluster of weather-battered postboxes, a very handsome boy, who scratches his head and looks around like he’s lost.

Your chest inflates in a way that makes it hard to breathe. You pocket your phone, double-check you have your keys, triple-check you have your wallet, and then you slip out of the double-wide like you were never there to begin with – exactly how you want to one day leave for good.

It’s a slow walk from your house, down the desiccated driveway, to where it meets the tarmac. You feel like there’s something uncomfortably stuck in your throat; no matter how many times you swallow you can’t seem to dislodge it. Your stomach churns like you’re about to see another disappointed dentist with bad news and not your best friend, who you are very sadly in love with.

Gansey finally spots you and his whole face lights up in a way that makes your heart ache with yearning. You wish you could see that face every day, from when you first wake up to when you turn out the light. You wish you could do more with it than just admire it.

You try to shove all these unhelpful thoughts into the back corner of your mind and you say, “Hey,” when you’re close enough that he’ll hear it. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“No—not at all,” Gansey says, like you’ve caught him off-guard with the preposterous idea that you could in any way inconvenience him, and he smiles broadly at you. He nods back to the drive you just hailed from. “I imagine it’s a bit of a walk. So this is where you live?”

“Yeah,” you say, by way of _I don’t want to talk about it._ You slyly look past him and into the Camaro. You try not to feel too happy that there’s no one else in there. “Didn’t bring Ronan and Noah with you then?” you ask, half joking, half carefully scrutinising his reaction.

He blinks at you, surprised. “Oh… No, uh, it’s just you and me tonight. Is that…?”

His eyebrows pull together and draw up, softly concerned, ready to accept fault, but you’re quick to assure him, “No, no, that’s fine—It’s just that you’re always with them, so, I wondered if…” You trail off, unable to just _ask_ if this is a date, throwing up your hand in a vague sort of gesture that he just nods at, as if it means something to him. Whatever he interprets, it clearly doesn’t mean _Is this a date?_ to him, because he continues to keep you in the dark.

“I left those two at Monmouth. They’re having pizza. Again,” Gansey adds miserably, like he can’t get them to eat anything else, like his constant concern for their physical health is exhausting him.

“So let’s have something other than pizza,” you suggest. He snaps his fingers and points at you, like he likes the way you think.

“Now that’s an idea. Is there any place you’d like to go?” he asks politely, to which you just lift one shoulder in a shrug, because you can’t say you’ve sampled even one of the many eateries in town. You don’t think you’ve eaten out in some time; you wouldn’t know what was delicious from mediocre.

“Anywhere’s good.”

He beams at you, his eyes sparkling. “Fantastic.”

He rounds the Camaro, keys chiming in his hand, and you nervously slip yourself into the front seat; it’s not that you’re unfamiliar or even uncomfortable with it, but the lack of other passengers in the rear-view mirror fills you with unease. No backseat antics, no distractions. It’s just you and him, alone, together, in the dark of his car, and you can’t seem to temper the hard rhythm in your chest. Your palms sweat and you feel flushed all over; you tell yourself that it’s just the endless summer heat, but you don’t have to dig very deep down to know that it’s not.

Whether Gansey is trying to be smooth in front of you or not, he fails at it, which immediately dials back the tension. He mutters “shoot” under his breath as he turns the key in the ignition, once, twice, three times before the Camaro roars to life. There’s a triumphant rumble beneath your seat and you feel it perfectly echoes your cavernous chest. The car pulls forward, taking you with it, and you practically melt back into your seat as you gain speed.

You turn your head toward the sunset; he notices you looking his way and flashes you a smile that is brilliantly backlit by buttery oranges and rippled pinks and tufts of creamy cloud. You wonder, again and again, _Is this a date?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at me over at [tumblr](http://telekinesiskid.tumblr.com/) and stay for those sweet trc memes :^)


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiiiiii I'm very tired ahaha but here!!!! for all you lovely folks out there <3
> 
> gracious beta by [kii](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex) as usual~

When Gansey parks outside a restaurant – _a restaurant,_ you think, not diner or food court or bar – you take a bolt of dread like a nail gun to your gut. You think you’ve made a stupid mistake, agreeing to go just anywhere with him. The place he has in mind looks _posh,_ which is to say, it looks expensive. You don’t have much money to spare, since the deadline for the next set of school fees is fast approaching, but you wouldn’t spend much money on a place like that anyway. Taste is a luxury you can’t afford; you weren’t brought up to accept quality as an acceptable substitute for quantity.

It happens, regrettably. At school, every day, you’re faced with a barrage of both overt and subtle reminders that you are more than a few socio-economic classes removed from the rest of your peers. Gansey is one of the few who, whenever he opens his mouth, you don’t hear _I am richer and better than you_ from but, occasionally, at times like this, you do. It’s all you can hear.

Money has never been a concern for Gansey and it clearly isn’t a concern for him now as he appraises the outdoor menu. He’s just like Tad; he could pay for _both_ your meals and his wallet would come away no lighter than before. But, unlike how you handled Tad, you’re not going to let Gansey buy you.

You falter; you pretend you’ve scuffed your shoe on a bad bit of sidewalk. You want to _eat,_ because you’re actually hungry, buried beneath all the nerves, but you don’t want to pay and you don’t want Gansey to pay for you either. You want to go someplace else, but you don’t want to say _why_ and throw off the amiable, relaxed atmosphere you’re trying so hard to keep up with.

_Just tell him no,_ you think, but you can’t do it. You think you would rather shell out far too much money you need, on a meal you _don’t_ need, just to impress a boy who may not even like you the same way you like him. You can feel yourself start to splinter, start to crack under pressure he doesn’t see, start to come apart at the seams, and you haven’t even sat down yet. _You’re a coward. You’re a mess._

Gansey looks back at you from the entrance, and you wonder if your hesitance must show, because he doesn’t usher you in and he doesn’t ask you to hurry. Over his shoulder, your morose eyes roam over warm sconces, spotless table cloths, polished silverware, leftovers the size of decent meals, uniformed waiters, a maître d smoothly picking up calls and eyeing you like he knows _exactly_ where you’ve come from. It’s a world that’s alien to you and a world you’re not welcome into. No one wants you there and you don’t want to go.

You don’t say anything – you just continue to stand there dumbly, forcing passers-by to weave around you – but you don’t have to; Gansey wanders back to you, hunches his shoulders, digs his hands deep in his trouser pockets, and feigns a change of heart. “You know, I don’t think I’m feeling this place after all. I’ll bet their mains are about as fulfilling as their appetisers.”

He offers you a thin pressed line of a smile, as if to say he’s sorry. You just lower your head.

You walk down the street, side by side, closer to him now than you’ve ever been before – _Do other people think we’re on a date? Do teenage boys ever platonically get dinner together? Does Gansey know what this looks like? –_ until you hit a place with a small, overly-lit shop front, and a menu that is made up exclusively of foods that can be deep-fried and served with ketchup. Gansey quirks an eyebrow at you, questioning, and you lead the way in. You pay for your meal and he pays for his and your pride stays woefully intact.

You dine cheaply and greasily, by the shop window, across from Gansey. There are only two tables; one you’ve claimed, the other covered with newspapers and jammed in next to an old arcade machine that reminds you of its existence in discordant chip-tunes every few minutes. You’re silent for a while as you eat the battered fish and chips you ordered, and you watch Gansey as he watches the world sail by. He bites softly into his burger and picks distractedly at his donut, and you force yourself to think about anything other than what his mouth and hands are doing.

He catches you staring; you’re not subtle at all, yet there’s something about his pleasant smile that seems innocent, clueless. If he’s not having the time of his life with you then he’s doing a superb job of faking it.

He swallows his mouthful before he speaks, already on the way to the next bite. “How’s yours?”

“Good. Yours?”

He nods. “Good, good.” He frowns at the table space between you like he doesn’t want it to be there. Your heart continues to stutter intermittently as you watch every move he makes. “So… Adam…” He swallows like that particular mouthful took a little effort. His free hand drums idly on the table top and you notice that the cashier and cooks at the counter have withdrawn into the backroom. You feel as alone with Gansey as you did in his car and you feel a little on fire. “How… How are things?”

He winces a small disappointed frown, just for himself, like that wasn’t at all what he wanted to say. “Things are good.” It’s not necessarily a lie; it’s easier to forget your adversities when you’re with Gansey. “I, um… I got a raise recently,” you offer up by way of conversation, and Gansey pounces on it with gusto. “It’s not that much – just ten cents. But when every cent counts…”

“Of course, of course. No, that’s good news. Good job.” He takes up his soda for a drink, and you’re not entirely convinced, but it seems as though his hands might be shaking. You’re a lot more convinced when he tries to set the drink down and almost spills it. “Um,” his voice comes out tighter than it just was, “forgive me, Adam, can I ask you a…. a weird question?”

Your hand worries at the hem of your shirt but you still say, “Go ahead,” casually, and force a chip into your mouth to show how casual you are.

Gansey nods and looks away, face creased with a type of anxiety you can’t quite place. “What are your thoughts on… on… polyamory?”

You blink at him, another chip halfway to your mouth. From the preceding topic, you’d braced yourself for clumsy but well-intentioned questions about your poverty or your work life. You weren’t prepared for this.

“Um.” You finish your chip and chew slow, feeding yourself a bit of time to think. But the longer you take to respond, the more he seems to fret. “You mean like, Mormons and cults?”

He smiles in a way that’s a perfect blend of disappointment and relief. “Right. Yes, well, those are certainly the… the, um…” He sighs, his disappointment winning out. “That’s usually what springs to mind when one thinks of polyamory, isn’t it. Well, that’s with regard to marriage – polygamy, that is – but I meant, uh, more generally?”

He’s trying again, his eyes a little hopeful, but you’re not sure what kind of response he wants from you. You adamantly decide you don’t want to give the wrong one. “Why do you ask?”

And then you suddenly understand what he’s on about. His cheeks colour before he can finish floundering for a suitable response, and before you even let him come out with it, you utter, “So the rumours are true?”

He stares at you, eyes wide, face red. “The rumours?”

Your chest compresses uncomfortably. You feel like he’s just upended a bucket of water over the fire in your heart, but you’re so used to let-downs by now that the smoke and ash barely choke you up anymore. Still, it’s a new sensation, this unrequited sting. It’s acute, it’s sharp, hard to swallow. Your own cheeks colour too, out of humiliation and shame. You chastise yourself, _I can’t believe I thought this was a date._

You push on, as usual.

“It’s, um… It’s said that you and Ronan and Noah, you all live in a warehouse someplace and…” A cashier returns to the counter and you decide to paraphrase some of Tad’s more graphic recounts and censor out the rest. “And you all, y’know… kiss and blow each other. A lot.”

Gansey looks down and away, tight-lipped, embarrassment written in red all over his face. A clear admission of guilt. He rubs a hand over his cheek as if he thinks he can just wipe the fierce blush away. You’ve never seen him this unravelled before, and it’s oddly remarkable and yet hard to watch, like witnessing the cruelty of nature.

He doesn’t look at you as he asks, softly, “Is that unsettling to you?”

You wonder if he means to ask if you’re homophobic, but there’s only one possibly-almost-definitely queer boy you hate. “No. I don’t care what you or your friend—boyfriends do. It’s not my business.”

Gansey’s face glows ever brighter. “W-well… what if it _were_ to become… your business?”

He glances up at you, almost daringly, and you make it plain from the look on your face that you don’t follow. Your patient silence forces him to try harder, and it dawns on you from this compilation of uncharacteristically awkward actions that this is probably one of the hardest, most stressful conversations he’s ever had. He desperately drinks from his soda can like his scorching blush has evaporated all the water from his body. You have no idea what’s wrong with him or how to help; you just stare on and slowly pick at your warm chips and feel a little thrill at the idea that someone as collected and controlled as _Gansey_ can still turn such a pretty shade of rose.  

“I like you,” he finally blurts, and your whole world stops there, but Gansey doesn’t. “But—I want to be _fair_ to you, I don’t want to lead you on if… if you’re not comfortable with my, uh, lifestyle? I suppose you could call it—but the matter of fact is, that, Ronan and Noah like you to, and, the three of us,” – everything is flooded and overbright and weightless but you’re distantly aware that Gansey hasn’t taken a proper breath yet – “would like to have you on board, that is, if you’re open to it…?”

You’re still too stunned to process even the gist of all that was just thrown at you, and it’s those few, precious missed beats that Gansey interprets unfavourably; his face drops into his hands and he moans, quiet and wounded and oh-so foolish.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice muffled by his hands. “Oh God, I’m sorry, I’ve ruined this, haven’t I? I’m so terribly _bad_ —ugh. Please, _please_ pretend I didn’t just make an idiot of myself. God _._ Excuse me.”

He moves to stand and that’s what finally draws you back to a keener reality; you stand with him and he looks up at you with the kind of restless worry that you can _understand now,_ because it’s what you’ve felt ever since you first realised you were in love with him. The confession is _there,_ on the tip of your tongue, waiting to spring free, but you hold it back. You dial it all back, and instead you manage to sputter out in its place, “I like you, too.”

It takes a moment or two to register. But the relief that plays on his face when it does is relieving for you, too.

“A-And you don’t mind?” he asks tentatively. “Ronan and Noah…?”

You’ve never been in a position to know if you’re the jealous type or not. You can’t imagine it would look very attractive on you, and if there’s one thing you don’t want to be in front of Gansey, it’s unattractive. “I don’t know them as well as I know you,” you admit honestly. “But, I mean… If we all… spent some time together?”

Gansey doesn’t say it but, in that instant, he smiles at you like he’s as in love with you as you are with him. “What are you doing right now?” he asks, breathless with exhilaration, and you start.

_“Right now?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come chat with me on [tumblr](http://telekinesiskid.tumblr.com/)!!!!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello lovelies!!! SO yeah Adam's in for a bit of a Nice Time this chapter :^) I'm gonna formally apologize if there's any *weird* sentences or typos or w/e - [kiiouex](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex) beta'd as usual, but I myself can't do a proper read back over this chapter for the following reasons: 1) it's too damn gay. My God. I don't think I've written a gayer thing in my entire life. I can't take it. 2) it's too long and I'm lazy. 3) Tad Carruthers isn't in it and I miss writing him :')
> 
> thank you all for your support!!! <3

You leave the fast-food shop on jellied legs, your dazed mind clearly elsewhere as Gansey has to remind you that his Camaro is back the other way. You murmur, “Of course,” and follow him, remarkably closer than before. His hand is close enough to yours that you could just reach out and hold it, but every time you think you’re about to do it, your heart trips over itself and makes you feel as though you’re suffocating. You’re a little afraid that, if you were to take Gansey’s hand, it would be the last thing you’d ever do. At least you’d die terrified but happy.

You don’t speak on the way to his car, or even _in_ his car. It’s not a wide absence of sound that you notice; your mind races so fast that not even you can keep up with it. You can’t stop thinking about Gansey _,_ and what polyamory means, and _Gansey,_ and what his place must look like, and Gansey’s hands, and how you’ll cope with sharing him with _two_ other people, and Gansey’s mouth and his shirt and his bedroom and his _bed,_ and then you’re red in the face. You’re just thankful that the dark of the car shrouds the worst of it.

It’s all new territory to you. You’ve never been in a proper relationship before. Tad is your first and only sexual partner but you can hardly call him a ‘boyfriend’ with his late-night booty calls, his secretive car rides, and the constant stream of putdowns and slurs. You don’t know how to be romantic with someone; you don’t know how to show them comfort and concern and lust that isn’t hard-edged with resentment. You wonder if entering into a relationship – a _real_ relationship, where love and respect are one and the same – with, not just one but _three_ people is a little like being thrown in the deep end on the first day of a new job. Little to no experience in the field, not yet skilled, surrounded on all sides by people you hardly know. But you’ve lived through similar circumstances before, and you’re eager to learn and try new things. You’re ready to take the initiative and get your hands dirty.

You look over at Gansey, who’s either completely oblivious to your worries or is in too deep with his own to notice yours. Paused at a particularly drawn-out red light, you watch his fingers tap on the wheel and his knee bounce, parts of him that should be still instead restless with jitters. Your mouth has dried up but you desperately want to ask him, when did he first realise he liked you? Was it tonight, just before he fired off the txt? Was it when he’d blushed at your naked, Coke-sticky torso? Was it at the Open Day when he’d touched your shoulder and told you “good luck”? Was it, somehow, miraculously, before that?

He drives you to an unfamiliar area just within the limits of Henrietta, down a street with little to no business, where red-brick buildings start to grow and space themselves out further, where darkened windows give way to broken and boarded up ones. He pulls into a car lot – there’s only one other car there which you recognise as Ronan’s BMW – with broken clumps of concrete pushed aside by struggling weeds. Gansey parks and kills the engine and flashes you a smile that is more excited than nervous, but still undeniably nervous. You wonder what there is to be nervous about.

“This is Monmouth,” he introduces, and points to the expansive, two-storey manufacturing plant in front of him, where massive tiled windows overlook the lot.

“Wow,” you murmur, bitterly impressed. You can’t even fathom how much money Gansey must have that he can just buy a place like this and share it with his friends—or, rather, his boyfriends. “What did it used to manufacture?”

Gansey wordlessly shakes his head at you. “Newspapers? We have no idea. Nothing that left any toxic residue, we hope… Anyway, come on in,” he says, hesitantly cheery, opening his door. “We may live in squalor, but at least it has a lot of space.”

You follow him into Monmouth and up a narrow flight of stairs, but not before he shows you the first floor, which consists entirely of dust, bits of cardboard too old to be of any use, broken chairs and collapsed desks, and a big heaping of more dust. The second floor, however, is a lot nicer; he takes you into a massive room with impossibly high ceilings, walls rimmed with boxes upon boxes of books, and, criss-crossed on the floor, a teeny model replica of Henrietta. You carefully navigate your feet around the model township, fascinated by the superb attention to detail. You’ve heard Gansey talk about it enough – he’s come into school with glue and bits of newspaper still stuck to his hands that many times – but, seeing it up close like this, you had underestimated just how much love and effort and _time_ had gone into it.

Just beyond the model, you notice a more traditional arrangement: a desk and chair and a bin, situated beside an unmade king-size bed that doesn’t quite touch the wall. You jerk your chin towards it. “Whose bed is that?”

“Oh, that’s mine,” he replies casually, and you throw him a surprised look. “This is my, well, bedroom,” he admits sheepishly. “Ronan’s and Noah’s are over there – those two doors. In a way, my room is the… biggest?”

You smirk a little. Your insides feel warm and light, just being here. “Right. Sure.”

You both startle when one of the aforementioned doors burst open and Ronan stands in the doorway, a wicked smile carved into his face, his legs pantless. You’ve never really allowed yourself to notice before just how sharply handsome he is, but you allow it now, and allow it a little more than you think you should. “Hey lovebirds,” he greets, tone dismissive, and saunters out. He calls, “Don’t get the party started without me,” before he locks himself into a room that could’ve been either a bathroom or a kitchen. Possibly a laundry.

You look at Gansey to determine how you should interpret ‘party’, but he just exhales in a withered kind of way as he falls onto a shiny leather couch. “What’s the party?” you try, and Gansey shakes his head, embarrassed.

“Please, ignore him. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

You nod. “Flea collar giving him trouble?”

He puts a hold on his self-indulgent misery to smile up at you. “Yes, exactly.”

He doesn’t drop his gaze, doesn’t blink, and within two seconds the mood has shifted past the point of a smooth return. He stares at you, and you stare at him, with the kind of intensity that forces more than a little heat to rise in your cheeks, but you have no idea what happens now or comes next. An uneasy silence fills the room and time slows and you can’t help but feel like you’re both waiting for the other to make their first move. You watch his lidded eyes dip just a little lower on your face and his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, thick and uncomfortable. Somewhere in the last few seconds, his expression slipped from pleased to pained. Like having you here with him, in his sanctuary, makes him ache terribly, and you’re suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to do _something. You’re better at this than you think you are,_ you assure yourself, and then you give in to instinct and impulse and take the first step.

His wide eyes look up at you helplessly as you slowly, stiltedly, close the distance between you both. Your heart feels about ready to give out on you but you won’t let it. He’s still sitting down – not that he’s really on your eye level anyway – so you lean down and, you swear, you feel his heart race in tandem with yours, harmonising with it, a cardiovascular duet. You’re so close that you can count his eyelashes, see yourself in his eyes, feel his quick and unsteady breaths on your mouth and, before you can even properly prepare yourself or take stock of this beautiful moment, your eyes slide closed and you kiss him.

Every nerve in your body is numb, alight with fearsome, burning desire, routing into the heat of your face and the sensitivity of your lips. You kiss him, feather-light, just testing, once, twice, and when he kisses you back, you daringly press a little harder, open your mouth a little wider. It takes you a few more moments to match his more experienced rhythm, but when you do, you feel like your entire body will melt. You feel like you could do this all day. Your tongue brushes his and it sets off sparks of arousal in your gut; he tastes like soda, deep-fried donuts, mint leaves fresh from the pot plant, and like something else you know you’ll infuriatingly only ever be able to describe as _Gansey._

You think you’re just about ready to pull away, to take a deep breath and attempt to process what you did and how it will irrevocably change your relationship forever, but then you feel his careful hand reach up to touch your jaw, and you don’t think you could stop even if you wanted to. Your skin tingles where he touches, too soft and not at all steady, and your own hand comes up to fit the side of his face into your hot palm. You’re too full of affection you want to _give,_ no matter how clumsy and awkward you are, and you want to hold Gansey and kiss him and wordlessly tell him just how much you love him.

Your ears prick as a door somewhere behind flies open and you break off the kiss prematurely. You stand back up and turn to see Ronan in the doorway to what is still a toss-up between a kitchen and a bathroom. He savagely smirks at you both, having caught you in the act. You don’t think your face could be anymore _red_ than it is now and the more you attempt to hide it, the more obvious you make it.

“What did I just fuckin’ say?” he demands, far from upset, and he comes to stand about as close to you as to Gansey, which is closer than he’s ever been before. “So.” He looks between you both, and it’s a little jarring how casual and conversational he seems. Your head can’t keep up with it; you’re still dizzy with the taste of Gansey. “I take it the date went well. Are we doing this thing, then? Should I call Czerny?”

Gansey starts, “Now, wait—”

“I’m here,” Noah says, suddenly on your other side, and you jump so hard that stumble into Ronan. Noah flashes you a small, apologetic smile as Ronan laughs, letting you right yourself. “Sorry. So, are we doing this?” he chirps, and there follows a slur of responses – a snicker, a sigh, an inquisitive noise – that you can’t quite focus on because you’re suddenly aware that you haven’t just landed yourself one boyfriend, but _three._ And they all seem _very,_ very eager to initiate you.

You have no idea what you’re doing. You are so out of your depth, drowning in conflicting currents of lust, and your face feels so red that you’re afraid it’ll pop.

“It’s up to Adam what happens now,” Gansey asserts, as though he’s frustrated he even has to explain something as obvious as that. You feel his eyes on you and you dare to look him in the eye after you felt his lips touch yours, after you tasted him, after you cradled his face. _Your first kiss_. “Adam?” he prods, gently. It’s a comfort to know, at least, that his cheeks are still as red as yours. “Do you… God, how do I put this… How far would you like to go?”

That question alone puts a pang of arousal in your belly you can’t ignore. Better yet, you don’t want to ignore it either. You don’t think you’ll be able to bluff your way out of how much you really want this for much longer; your pants already feel uncomfortably tight.

You swallow. “Oh. Well… I mean…” You swallow again. Your voice sounds strange and not quite your own. “As far as you want to go.”

Your breath hitches when you feel a sudden mouth press to the side of your neck, warm and wet, and your entire back erupts with prickles that keep you firmly in place. It’s Ronan, you know, because he’s slipped out of your peripheral vision, and he uses just the barest hint of teeth as he sucks and laps at your neck. You feel nailed to the spot, helpless underneath him, but curiously not in any danger – no one has ever made you feel like this before and everything is too new and sensitive and _nice._ Your head tilts to the other side, of its own accord, letting Ronan take for himself as much of you as he can have.

“We’d love to have you,” he mumbles into your skin, and your cock stirs in your pants. Gansey is right in front of it and you simultaneously _want_ him to notice and fear that he will. “All three of us. We wanna make you feel good.”

“Oh,” you say again, more as a gasp, because you can’t breathe without panting now. “All—three?”

You feel another body press in just behind you, on your unoccupied side, and if Ronan is hot, fast and wet kisses with the threat of a bite, Noah is icy, slow and dry kisses that he plants on your incredibly warm cheek. They inch closer and closer to your ear until his tongue brushes it and you feel like if you weren’t pressed between two people, you would definitely collapse. “Yeah,” Noah whispers into your ear and your body _writhes_ with the sensations that travel down your shoulder, down your spine, to pool and throb sweetly in your lower stomach. “We like you.”

You feel too weak, too overcome to move, and then you’re being walked halfway across the room to sit back on the unkempt bed. You meet Gansey’s gaze for the first time in so many slow and intense minutes, and he looks vaguely worried for you, but not so worried that he looks like he’ll intervene. You’ve surrendered yourself to both Ronan and Noah’s influence and Gansey won’t save you from it either. He’s followed you over from the couch but he stays standing still, just watching as your head lolls back to allow better access to your neck and you lose the fight to keeping quiet. You feel spoiled. You feel happy. You feel _loved._

Ronan’s the one to, mercifully, free you from your slacks. He quickly pops the button and works the zip down like he’s done it a dozen times, blindfolded and in his sleep, and then he works them down your hips, thumbs hooked into the waistband of your underwear, too. You feel a little foolish as your erection springs free and strains up to your stomach, like it thinks you can come from foreplay alone – this concept which had remained alien to you until tonight.

You look back at Gansey; his face is not-so-carefully crafted into a poker face, but it’s clear from the way his dick is now visible through his khakis that he likes watching them undress you and make a show out of you and pull you apart. Your shirt comes off, too, leaving you bare, and you don’t even know what the intent is. You don’t know anymore if Ronan and Noah are doing this for themselves, or for you, or for Gansey. _All of you,_ you think, dimly. _It’s for all of us._

“It’s for you,” Noah whispers into your ear and once again you’re paralyzed with shivers. Ronan’s hand takes your dick in hand and you buck senselessly into it, out of your mind as he starts to pump you, giving you firm, long and quick strokes that make you bench all decorum and leave you a wreck. It’s a single moment of weakness that causes you to lose track of your breathing and then you’ve lost all focus entirely; your breath spills out over your lips in pants, in moans you can’t keep down, in whimpers that you know you’d feel endless embarrassment over if they didn’t make Ronan and Noah hum and coo over you with approval.

“Dick, for fuck’s sake, get over here,” Ronan snaps, and when your eyes pry open, Gansey is leaning over you this time, face impossibly close and impossibly warm. He smiles, right before he kisses you, and then you can’t help it, it’s too much, you’ve come undone – it sets off a chain-reaction you can’t even hope to impede and you come into Ronan’s hand, your mouth parting around Gansey’s lips. You’re awash with a white-hot ecstasy that you’ve never felt so _intensely_ before, not with Tad, not on your own, not anywhere. There’s nothing even remotely comparable to how _good_ you feel, and you end your silence with a few choked breaths as you start to come down and the world starts to slowly fade back in. You jerk hard with the aftershocks, but three bodies – two warm, one cool – crowd around you, keeping you safe, helping you relax. Someone kisses your cheek. Someone else traces the line of your collarbone. Someone else runs their fingers through your hair.

You open your eyes and there’s _three people_ here, smiling at you like you’re not a filthy secret, like you’re not a shameful thing, like they’re not expecting anything in return, and you’re suddenly so overcome with emotion that tears rush for your eyes and you have to leave.

They let you sit up and slip off the bed. Face carefully turned away, you say, “Sorry—I’m just going to—clean up,” and make a beeline for the kitchen/bathroom/laundry hybrid. If you’ve aroused anyone’s suspicion, no one comes for you.

You lock the door behind you, and that’s when the emotion pours out of you, safety in solitude. There’s a sweet, rolling ebb to your body still, accented with aftershocks, but it’s quickly being stamped out with the all-encompassing misery that your tears bring. You press your face into your hands and you try to cry as silently as the reverberation of the room will allow.

You beg yourself, _don’t fucking do this now, don’t fucking cry here, not now,_ and you try to swallow back all of your tears with the force of a boot down your throat. Panic spikes when someone knocks on the door. “Adam?”

It’s Gansey, and he sounds worried – _worried_ – and it only wants to make you bawl harder. _Swallow it, swallow._

“Are you alright?”

“ _Yeah,_ ” you call back through the door, hoping the off pitch of your voice won’t betray you, and you go to grab the edges of the industrial size sink. You run cool water and wash your hands and splash your eyes and rub all the tears out of you. “ _Just give me a sec,_ ” you call out, more of a plea than you wanted it to be. You let the water stream for a while as you lean far over the sink and wish that you went into this better prepared. Of _course_ they wouldn’t have been as dismissive and detached as Tad. They like you. They care about you. _Get it together, Adam,_ you say, over and over, until you can make it true. _Get it together, get it together. They’re waiting for you. You’re worrying them._

You shut off the water. You draw in one last miserable sniff and pat your face with a nearby towel and you throw open the door. They’re up from the bed, in different spots of the room, not talking, but they all turn to look at you in unison. Whatever mess is going on in your face, you hope that your naked body is enough of a distraction.

But you are absolutely freezing, so you quickly cross the room and find your clothes and start to redress.

Gansey approaches first. He asks, plaintive, “You’re leaving?”

Your heart aches. You know how it looks. “It’s not you,” you mumble, head still down as you pull on your slacks. “It’s none of you—really, it’s not. I’m just…” _I don’t know how to handle this._ “I’m just tired. And I have a curfew.”

Gansey nods. He doesn’t understand but he solemnly accepts your decision nonetheless. You know he must be tearing himself apart, re-evaluating everything that was said and done to you, searching for the blunder that triggered this bad outcome. But none of it shows; he just smiles sadly at you. “Can I drive you back?”

In the past this would’ve been a bad decision. But, with Gansey, it doesn’t feel like one anymore.

You smile back, sadly. “Sure. Thank you.”

He waits for you to finish lacing your shoes and then you follow him to the door. Ronan and Noah are back to shadowing each other, and they stare at you like they already know all your secrets and are quite immune to them. Noah smiles, says, “See you later, Adam,” and Ronan gives you a nod, which speaks volumes coming from Ronan. It says _we’re okay_ on a level that doesn’t even factor that just ten minutes prior he had brought you to orgasm. You feel pathetic as you just wave back, too choked up to speak.

Gansey takes you back down the stairs, out of Monmouth, back into his Camaro. He doesn’t immediately start it up and for a few moments the two of you sit there in a silence that feels a lot less companionable than when you arrived. You don’t want to talk – you want to go home, to pick apart and make sense of all these new emotions, to stop praising Tad for not hurting you as much as he could have – but Gansey clearly wants to. “I’m sorry,” he starts, and you shake your head. “If we did anything to upset you—”

“You didn’t,” you cut him off. You feel raw and humiliated and awful; you just want to go home. You don’t have the emotional capacity to make yourself feel better, let alone him. “Please, just—trust me when I say its fine. I’m sorry I’m… abrupt. Can we talk about it later?”

He looks at you and you fix him with a look that only echoes your earlier statement. _I mean it. Later, we’ll talk._

He nods, looks away. He starts up the Camaro and the sudden unabashed grunting of it is jarring, frightening. He says, “I’m just worried about you,” at normal volume, which is just barely drowned out by the noise.

_I know you are. Thank you._ But you can’t bring yourself to say it.

You reach over to hold his hand. It’s warm, and clean, uncalloused and smooth and soft; it’s not at all like yours, but he still holds you back with such a gentle intensity that you want to be home already with a pillow over your face. Like he has you now and he never wants to let you go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come harass me over at [tumblr](http://telekinesiskid.tumblr.com/) ;))


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *casually writes an 8k story between chapters of this fic* hey how's it goin, I totally remember what's going on mhm
> 
> special thanks to my [super tired bae](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex) who works really hard and still beta'd <3

The next day you still don’t explain why you suddenly felt the need to leave, but no one makes you. You arrive a little later than usual and open with a petty but relatable complaint about your book review and seamlessly act like there’s nothing out of the ordinary. There’s barely a missed beat; Gansey follows suit, because he knows you well enough by now. You think he’s just happy that you’re still talking to him at all.

Loving him becomes a little easier, now that he’s yours. It’s a little less of a burden on your heart, and your step is a little lighter for it too. You stick too close to him at school, because he just makes you feel so _warm_ in a way the sun or an old, plinking oil heater can’t. You think if you were braver, you’d hold hands in the corridors and freely kiss when you inevitably had to part for different classes. But the fact that you and Gansey and Ronan – Noah never seems to be around, weirdly enough, but at least he’s there in spirit – are closer than usual today, both in proximity and intimacy, draws unwanted attention. It sets Tad Carruthers and his ‘faggot radar’ off in a way that has him shadowing you like a hunter. A really inept, loud-mouthed, sexually frustrated hunter.

You don’t think you’re doing anything even remotely homoerotic this time; you’re just walking to the dining hall, Gansey and Ronan flanking you at inoffensive distances. You’re not holding hands (though you wish you were), and you’re not mincing, and you’re not dressed in the sequin vests or assless chaps that you’ve been rumoured to own. Yet Tad and four or five of his lacrosse team cronies are hot on your heels, spitting out every cuss word under the sun, bellowing about how you’re all such filthy cocksuckers.

You glance to your left and then right, your head still forward. Gansey doesn’t care. Ronan cares even less.

You tell yourself that you shouldn’t care either.

That’s the fatal flaw in Tad’s plan, you think. All these homophobic slurs and tasteless anecdotes don’t really affect you in the way that they would destroy him. He’s not harming you or your already terrible reputation; he’s only showing you what real humiliation and social ruin would look like, _to him_.

You cast your mind back to when you were still ‘with’ Tad, whatever that meant. Tad had a rule. Actually, he had a number of rules, but most of them you could figure out from the way he snuck you around after dark, stuffed you out of his father’s sight like a bag of Class A drugs. But he did make _one_ rule very clear to you when you would repeatedly break it in your early days: you don’t mention it. _It_ was sex, and you just don’t talk about it, ever. It arises naturally, or else it’s sometimes requested or demanded, and then it’s over. It could be played out a thousand times in your head, but it could never be said aloud.

Today, you’re about to break that one rule and, in doing so, break every other that made the shaky foundation of your relationship. The cagey trust, the polite discretion, the desire to avoid conflict rather than just ask him why he touched you only when you slept – all of it.

You stop walking, and everyone behind you stops too. Slowly you turn, find Tad’s dark eyes in the small mob of lacrosse-uniformed boys. Before you can even convince yourself that this is a bad idea, you address him by name for the first time in weeks, your voice too calm and confident to be your own. “You know what, Tad? You’re a really selfish lover. You only think about yourself. You never did anything nice for me, not once, when I _repeatedly_ tried to accommodate you and your needs. You’re a selfish, self-hating prick who’s a _really_ lousy fuck, and I feel so sorry for you and all the beards in your life that are yet to come.”

Regret hits you instantly. The air around you feels too still, too quiet, too tense. You turn around, and it’s as if whatever possessed you to say all those things to Tad Carruthers’ face, in front of all his closest mates, has suddenly vanished. You realise too late what you said, _where_ you said it, _who you said it to,_ and now your heart stutters into overdrive because you’re sure that he’ll kill you—he’ll have no other choice to save face.

Your head _screams_ , drowning in a primal kind of fear, and you draw your shoulders up defensively as hard, fast footsteps come up from behind you. You take one panicked step forward and Tad’s fist slams into the side of your head, throws you across the corridor to smack into the wall. The world jolts, loses its balance. Everything rings, your vision whites out. For a second you forget that you’re in school, and you flounder desperately for words that can appease your father, that can spare you from the inevitable second blow.

A second blow is delivered – you hear it so keenly, like tenderised meat and the crunch of bone – but it doesn’t fall onto you; it falls onto someone else, behind you, someone you can’t see, and you don’t know whose back slams into a set of lockers, only that it’s happening in a world you feel you aren’t inhabiting anymore. What sounds like a small riot breaks out – cheers and grunts and cusses and screams overlap at an alarming rate – and you curl in on yourself on the floor against the wall, one hand covering your face, the other floating just above the throbbing, absent mass of pain that’s spreading from your temple to your ear to your eye. You open your mouth to tell your father _stop,_ but no words come out.

Someone grabs your shoulder – _please, dad, I’m sorry –_ but Gansey’s voice rises above the brawl and reminds you of where you are, who you are. “ _Adam_ ,” he exclaims, and he sounds oddly faraway, even when he’s right beside you, grounding you. He puts his arms around your middle and tries to pick you back up onto your feet, but they don’t want to move. “Adam, we need to get you to the sick bay. Are you okay? Can you stand?”

Your head pulses dully and you tell yourself it’s a pain you should be more than used to by now. How many times have you been hit like this? How many times will you leave your body, like the punch literally knocked your soul out of you? Your eyes open and you stare at the floor, follow a small pattern made from sauce to a small rock with a round, smooth edge and a hard, jagged one. War wages on in your ears, in your head, but you’re perfectly content to stay and look at the small rock. Your eyes zero in on it like nothing else matters.

Someone keeps trying to pull you up, pull you away, and you finally just let them; you’re dragged back up to your feet and they do their best to carry your stumbling, shaking weight. All around you, people scatter. Someone brushes past you, fans your stinging red face with a rush of cool air, and unleashes a hellish shriek, like a wraith. Whistles blow intermittently, like an alarm. You don’t know what’s going on. You don’t know why you’re in school.

You’re led away from the chaos, until the only sounds left is the heartbeat in your ear, in your face, Gansey’s heavy breathing. Very, very dimly, you think, _please don’t let him see me like this._

Outwardly, you’re far more interested in how sloped the room looks with your head titled. Unreal.

\----

You lose some time between the harassment on your walk to lunch and your sudden, no-explanation-necessary appearance in the sick bay, but Gansey knows better than to comment on it. He’s sitting beside you, on a metal-frame bed with a scratchy blanket, one of his warm hands loosely linked with one of your cold ones. He notices that you’ve let the ice pack slip from your face before you do and he reaches over, slowly, carefully, prompting you to put it back over your sore eye. You’ve never really used an ice pack before. It’s a lot less like the cooling relief that films promised; to you it’s just more another, icier layer of pain you don’t need.

You flinch – you wish you could stop – and Gansey turns his head as the door opens to Ronan and Tad: both bloodied, both swollen, both red in the face now and purple tomorrow. The nurse stands tall and authoritative behind them, urging them to go into the treatment room, and Ronan slouches in with a just-noticeable limp to sit on the end of the bunk. You stare up at Tad Carruthers with one eye, doleful but detached, seeing him and not seeing him. He looks between the three of you, his hatred intense and palpable even with all expression beaten out of his numb face. You watch him turn back to the nurse and mumble, “Can I sit in another room please?” before he’s led to an adjacent treatment room. The door closes again.

You release a shaky breath you hadn’t realised you’d been holding.

“Ronan,” Gansey inquires blankly, head half-turned in his direction. Hand still linked with yours, he runs his thumb over your chapped skin. “You alright?”

“Fucking great,” Ronan sighs, standing to medically attend to himself. He confidently reaches into the cabinets for bottles and bandages like he’s done this a hundred times before, and he probably has; he gets into that many fights. You watch him absently as he wets a tissue and, in a mirror, wipes as much dry and wet blood from his face as he can, and then you watch him upend a bottle of antiseptic on a fresh tissue, dab at where his skin has split open. He barely even winces when he does it. You think he’s a lot more fearless than you are.

“Thank you,” you say, and his eyes find yours in the mirror. He pauses, but only for a second, before he scoffs and resumes cleaning his face up.

“Anything for you, Parrish,” he says, and it sounds sarcastic, because Ronan always sounds sarcastic, but you don’t think that it is. Gansey’s hand squeezes yours and you don’t miss the relieved, breathless little laugh he makes when you finally have it in you to squeeze back. It’s so strange. You feel awful, as you normally do, but the warmth that Gansey puts in your belly is a fierce competitor, trying to drive out your fear.

When Ronan has lazily taped a few plasters over his cuts and dry-swallowed two painkillers, he wanders back over. He slumps into a chair opposite you and Gansey, crosses his arms and brushes grit and buttons from his blazer sleeve. “Nice one, by the way,” he murmurs, and you try to pay extra attention to the words he’s saying, your eyebrows raising inquisitively. “What you said to Tit Carruthers, about being a selfish lover— _right_ in front of his mates too. You almost had _me_ convinced.”

“Ronan,” Gansey admonishes, but there’s no real heart to it. He sounds so tired.

“It wasn’t a joke,” you say, and this time Ronan raises an eyebrow at you. “He really is a selfish lover. I didn’t understand that until last night.”

Ronan just stares at you. Gansey’s head turns to stare at you too.

“You mean he’s…?”

“Wait, hold up,” Ronan cuts Gansey off, suddenly leaning very far forward in his chair. His mouth curls up viciously. “Are you seriously telling me, that Tad _I-fucking-hate-faggots_ Carruthers is _gay?_ Oh, _Christ_.” He throws back his head hard enough for it to hit the wall but he doesn’t wince like you do; he laughs, loud and unabashed, like it’s the funniest thing he’s heard all day. All week. All year. “Oh, _shit_ ,” he cries, screwing his eyes shut, covering his mouth. His laughs are stifled now but his whole body still convulses.

You can even feel Gansey have an indulgent, guilty little laugh, his quaking body pressed up to yours. “That is rather funny,” he admits.

The door suddenly opens and the nurse pokes his head in. “Everyone okay in here? Lynch?”

Ronan waves the nurse off without even opening his eyes. “I took care of it, Stevens.”

“Good. Good, good.” The nurse gives you another quick once-over; you’ve already been checked for possible concussion, and you’re sure you look a less spaced-out than you did when you first arrived. You nervously smile at him until the nurse seems satisfied. “Keep that ice pack on your eye, Parrish.”

“Yes, Sir,” you murmur, even after the door’s closed, and readjust the ice pack’s position. You switch hands holding it.

“Okay, but seriously,” Ronan continues, and Gansey sighs, irritated. “Tad _fucking Carruthers?”_

“Yeah. I… ugh.” You’re hesitant to use the word ‘dated’ but you can’t think of a better term for it. “We dated, I suppose, for a year or two. I met him before I even came here, when I was still in Mountain View. No one knew about us. Until now, I guess,” you add and drop your head, the threat of tears hanging low over your head. No wonder he hit you, you think. He never hit you before, but you were an _idiot_ for ever thinking that he never would. So much misdirected anger was born out of his repression. “I broke it off with him when I started here. That’s why he’s been harassing me. He wants me to leave.”

Ronan looks too stunned for words. Gansey leans his head on your shoulder and hoarsely breathes out, like it physically hurts.

“Wow. What an asshole,” Ronan finally concludes and you nod, like you couldn’t possibly agree more.

“He’s not going to make you leave,” Gansey mutters into your shoulder, his hand curling around yours a little tighter, a little more dearly and fiercely. “We won’t let him. You have every right to be here. If he doesn’t like it then that’s his problem.”

You smile faintly as Gansey presses a heartfelt kiss, just under your jaw, filling you with warmth and hope. You can’t believe that just a few short months ago your most reliable support system – the person you would turn to when you needed an escape – was Tad Carruthers himself. By contrast to Gansey, now, he feels like an enemy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come yell at me about trc or anything else over at [tumblr](http://telekinesiskid.tumblr.com/) ;))


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so!!!!!!!!!! there's only one chapter left now!!! 
> 
> I actually had to rewrite this because the original ending was waaaaay too dark and not all that flattering to Tad, so yeah. I guess if people are keen to read it regardless (there's like *one* moment I'm super proud of lmao) then I could post it on tumblr under a cut???? if anyone's interested in Things Taking A Turn For The Worst and Adam Is Really Cruel, let me know :o
> 
> EDIT: there's an ask I answered about it [here](http://telekinesiskid.tumblr.com/post/145032516669/in-maybe-youre-better-than-this-what-did-you)
> 
> beta by [kiiouex](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex) what a sweetie~

It’s only ten to five when the librarian taps your shoulder to tell you that she’s locking up for the day. You chafe over what you could reap even from just ten minutes more, but you don’t complain; you just nod and make a show of packing up your pens, your notes, your books. You know there’s no sense in dawdling sullenly; you’ll only lose more time you really can’t afford to lose, what with multiple tests already upon you. One by one, you push the weathered library texts back into their respective slots on the majestic shelves, and you murmur “good evening” to the librarian as you walk out the door she’s holding for you. She locks the door, pockets the keys, and your heart sags in your chest. If only you could have just a little more time.

You try not to let it bother you. You tell yourself that time shifts but it’s never truly lost; if you get to work early, maybe you could leave early.

You cross the school, from one stately building to the next. The sky darkens earlier now. The colonnades are a lot more eerie and a lot less refined than you first laid eyes on them; you remember the place painted in rich earthy brick and yellowed sunlight, animated students weaving between them with purpose and direction. Now everything looks blue and empty and still, like an old mausoleum stretching out for miles, and you’re the only visitor. You think that as winter closes in, it’ll shift from unsettling to intimidating.

You locate the usual bathroom you change clothes in and head inside. You flick on the lights, because it’s too dark to see, and they slowly blink awake to hum lively overhead. Before you disappear into the disabled cubicle, you warily inspect your reflection. You think your bruise has worsened over the day, has blackened your cheek bone a little more. It’s not anywhere near as bad as some of the ones your father has landed on you, but you’re used to your father’s blows by now. You’re not used to Tad’s. It feels different, somehow, in a way that pushes your heart up to lodge uncomfortably in your throat. It feels like the very first time your father hit you all over again.

You would’ve slapped some foundation on it except that, incredibly, you’re running low. Besides, everyone knows who did this to you. Everyone saw you get hit, and those that weren’t there definitely heard about it. You think you’d only look more pitiful if you tried to hide it.

You fail to swallow the lump in your throat, re-hoist your bulky backpack, and go into the cubicle.

You’re only half-out of your uniform when you hear the door squeak open.

It gives you pause. You’ve been in this bathroom every day at five o’clock for the past few months and not once has someone so much as poked their head in to see who was still around. No cleaners, no professors, no other students – no one. It’s _odd,_ sure, but you tell yourself that it’s not creepy. You resume undressing, now keenly aware of the loud rustle your shirt makes as it slips from your shoulders. You don’t have _time_ to feel self-conscious about it, to take it slow, to be quieter in the sudden _quiet_ of the bathroom, but you do anyway.

You frown as you carefully, silently, fold up your school shirt and settle it deep inside your bag. Whoever wandered in doesn’t use a cubicle, doesn’t approach the sinks. You don’t know what they’re doing. If they haven’t moved since they came in, then they’re probably still standing right in front of you.

“Parrish,” Tad says, not kindly, and your body stills. You feel like your core temp has just plummeted. Your mind races – _he shouldn’t be here, he never stays this late at school, how did he know I was here, did he follow me?_ “Come out. I need to talk to you.”

You open your mouth to speak but your throat has closed up, walled off all sound. The only noise you can make is the too-fast thrum of your chest. You wonder what’ll happen if you just stay quiet and don’t answer to him—would he leave? Would he yell at you until your hands shook? Would he break down the door? You don’t know. You feel like you can’t underestimate his anger anymore. It’s not safe.

 _Go away,_ you will yourself to say, but your mouth moves soundlessly. You need to finish changing. You need to go to work. You don’t have time. _Please just leave me alone._

“Don’t give me this goddamn silent treatment. Open the fucking door so I can _talk to you._ ”

Your hands worry at the straps of your backpack—want to pick at loose threads and pull it all to pieces. You can feel the anger rising in his tone, boiling in his blood, and you’re compelled to do as he says. You’ve done this enough times with your father to know that you’re not anymore safe behind a closed door, at the end of the day.

_“Parrish.”_

You stand back up. You will your hands not to shake but they still do as you reach for the lock, draw it back, and slowly pull the door open. Tad Carruthers stands before you, his face still scratched up and badly bruised from yesterday. His features are drawn into a deep, deep frown that surely must _hurt_ , but it never lets up, not even for a second, like the pain itself goads him on.

His eyes flicker down and up and you wish you’d put on your shirt before you faced him. You feel cold. You feel vulnerable.

“You said you wouldn’t fuckin’ tell anyone,” he starts, voice dark.

Your throat reflexively uncloses to allow a single perfunctory response: “Sorry.”

He shakes his head, revolted by you, incensed by your audacity. “You don’t sound very fucking sorry.”

You don’t tell him it’s because you’re not. But your silence seems to spell that out anyway, and he snarls at you, raw and ruthless and _hurt_.

“You _humiliated me,_ Parrish! If front of my fuckin’ _mates!_ They’re been avoiding me—they’re _actually convinced_ that I’m a faggot for you, after your little fuckin’ outburst. They’ve having practice without me, right now—they’re probably talking shit about me behind my _back_ —shit that _you fuckin’ stirred up, Parrish!”_

You’ve watched this scene before and you see it coming before it even hits. There’s a fearful flash of intuition, of self-preservation; it takes all the complexity of what you are and reduces you to the primitive instincts of a cornered animal, and you close the door on him – _“Hey-!” –_ before he can even think to hurt you. But your hands are just stiff clumps of meat; you can’t fumble the complicated lock closed in time and Tad shoves it back open and shunts you aside in the process.

You’re pumped with adrenaline; you want to _run_ , but there’s nowhere to run to. Tad stands in your way, barring your exit, and he fixes you with a stare that you feel like you really shouldn’t look away from, or else he’ll bite your head off.

“I’m not fucking _finished,_ Parrish. You’re a fucking _pain in my ass._ I knew this would fucking happen—I just _knew_ you’d tell those faggot boyfriends of yours about me and try to ruin my life. I’ve wanted you out of this fucking school from _day one._ ”

Shakily, you reach into your backpack for your plain shirt and pull it over your head. You’re backed up into a corner now. He’s not coming any closer, but he’s not showing any signs of unblocking the doorway either. He didn’t ever want to talk; he just wanted to yell.

You don’t have time. “I have to go,” you murmur, and you take a tentative step forward, only to jolt back when Tad slams a hand on the cubicle wall. It shudders, rattles with the impact.

“ _Are_ they your faggot boyfriends?” he demands to know and your gaze drifts to the side. You’re going to be late to work. “Are you fucking them now? Is… Is _that_ why you think I’m a lousy, selfish fuck? Are they better than me?”

 _Yes,_ you think, but you don’t voice it. You wouldn’t dare.

He nods rapidly, indignantly, like he heard you loud and clear anyway. His face shifts in a peculiar way; it lets up on a little of its biting aggression to be replaced by something else. “ _I’m sorry_ I hit you,” he says, but he still sounds so resentful. “It’s not like I fucking _wanted to,_ Parrish, fucking _Christ—why_ _can’t_ things just go back to the way they were? When you were still in Mountain View, and you didn’t want to go off in search of something _better._ Why didn’t you ever care how _I fuckin’ felt?”_

You’re reminded of what he said to you, months ago, when he confronted you after your first day. How hurt you had been then, how hurt you are now. It’s like he’s screaming _“why do you matter?”_ and stomping on your face with his own five hundred dollar top siders, somehow not even realising it.

“I only ever cared how you felt. Our entire relationship was about _you_ ,” you say, the barest hint of hostility to it, and he frowns, like this inexplicably confuses him. “You never cared about _me_.”

“ _Of course I—”_ he stops, starts again, voice forcibly calmer. “I _do_ care about you, Parrish. You fucking idiot.”

“Gansey doesn’t call me an idiot,” you mutter.

Tad doesn’t have a response to that. He just stares at you. You ignore him; you bend to zip up your backpack and it strains with the amount of stuff you have, almost at bursting point. You try to lift it as you straighten back up, but Tad is suddenly a lot closer than he was before and the strap slips from your hand. Your body tenses, ready to run, ready to fight, ready to brace for impact, waiting for his coil to spring—

He leans in, screws his eyes up closed, and mashes his mouth against yours.

You make a noise of protest and push him away. “Don’t,” you say, but you’re met with resistance; he pushes back against you, pinning you between his chest and the wall, and he forces another clumsy kiss on you. He’s never kissed anyone before and it shows in the way he puckers his stiff lips, in the way he tries to grind your chins and teeth together, like he can make up for what he lacks in technique with force. He kisses you like he badly wants it, but also like he wants to kill you with it. It _hurts,_ and he doesn’t taste at all like mint. He breathes your name – _“Adam”_ – and your blood fizzes with revulsion.

You shove at his shoulders, a little harder than before, but he doesn’t take the hint. _“Fuck off,”_ you enunciate, very clear, very serious, but he refuses to back down, and fear starts to rapidly spark in your stomach. He’s in love with you, but he doesn’t respect you, and he wants to take you down a peg or two, and it strikes you only now what a dangerous mix that is. The fear you harboured before quickly wanders from the familiar; the more he tries to push your mouths together and grab at your shirt, the more you feel way out of your depth, the fear ticking over into unfamiliar territory. You know how to deal with a beating – you don’t know how to deal with _this._

 _So don’t deal with it then,_ you tell yourself.

You don’t have time. You’re going to be late for work.

Your knee flies up, unthinking; it smacks into his groin and he shouts, right by your ear, but he stumbles back and holds his balls and leaves a clear exit path. Your head pounds, keenly aware he could jump you at any second, so you try to move fast. You shoulder your backpack, leave the cubicle, reach for the door—

“ _Fuck!”_ Tad shouts, agonised in so many ways, and you falter. You wish you didn’t feel so cruel, after all that he did to you. “ _Parrish!_ If you leave now then—I fucking swear, I’m going to _call your fucking hick dad_ and tell him about all about you!”

Your heart stops.

“He’ll pull you out of Aglionby! He’ll take all your money! He’ll put your head through a _goddamn fucking wall!”_

Hand on the door, you throw a petrified look over your shoulder. Tad is leaning over himself, one hand still clutching his balls, his blue and black face dark with repression and rejection and lust and contempt. He draws in a horrid sniff and shudders out a breath; his eyes are wet and heavy with tears.

“I’ll fucking do it,” he threatens, rueful, and you don’t doubt him. “If you won’t—if you don’t cut this shit out. I’m telling your dad everything. Don’t just fucking walk away from me.”

You stare at him, uncomprehending.

And then you throw open the door and run.

 _“Par—_ fuck _, Adam! ADAM!”_

The weight of your bag slams into your back with each leap you take, but you don’t stop running until you’re at your bike at the old rink. Outside, it’s already dark with cloud and cold. You lace up your sneakers as you pin your cell between your ear and your shoulder, on call to your workplace, your eyes fervently checking for signs that you’re being followed. You don’t know where Tad _is,_ but you know you need to get on the road before he catches up with you. You need to _work,_ to make money, but first you need to secure your future before anyone can ruin it.

Someone you don’t know picks up at the trailer factory and you say, voice tight and off-pitch, “Hey, this is Adam Parrish; look, can you tell Marvin I can’t make it in today? Something, uh, really urgent came up and I just can’t come in right now—can you please tell him I’m sorry and that I’ll make up the hours later this week? Thank you.”

You hang up and slip your cell back into your pocket. You cast one last panicked look around you before you hop on your bike and force your feet to pedal as fast as they can.

You’re out of your mind with _fear_ and disgust and exhaustion, but you try to think up a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my!!!!!!!!!!! what will happen next!? tune in like, tomorrow I guess lmao
> 
> also come harass me [tumblr](http://telekinesiskid.tumblr.com/) ;))


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS IT!!!! THE LAST CHAPTER!!!! I'm sorry if the very end feels *too* rushed?? (I'm just a little bit Done where there's no more Tad lmao) 
> 
> I just want to say, thank you to everyone who read this and showed their support! :'D you're all so lovely!!! and I'd really appreciate any concrit or feedback or even just a line to say if you enjoyed this fic??? no pressure or anything!! I just constantly wanna improve as a writer and it would help me out a lot :')
> 
> as always, thank you to my beta reader and actual irl wife [kiiouex](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kiiouex/pseuds/kiiouex)! she's an amazing writer and also REALLY helped me rework the end of this story so it's Not Terrible so!!! you have her to thank lmao

Your bike is still crashed, capsized by the short steps to the double-wide where you sit now. You know you ought to put it back in the carport, before the rainclouds blow in, before your father mistakes it for junk and violently repurposes it, but you can’t move. You can’t will your muscles to let up on the tension held in them so firmly for so long, and you can’t will your sore eyes to look away from the dirt-packed driveway. _In ten minutes I’ll move the bike,_ you say, but you promised the same almost half an hour ago.

Every inch of you _aches_ – not from pain but _exhaustion_. Your body teeters on the verge of shutting down, what with the amount of stress this day alone has caused you, on top of your already hectic week, but you can’t let yourself relax, not yet. You need to be ready. You had a granola bar – like nourishment is any substitute for a lack of sleep – to replenish your dwindled strength, to tank up the run-down gauge, but you can’t hope to match the rate at which you are burning through your body. Your head has stopped _screaming_ with urgency, but it’s still far from quiet; you can’t stop thinking about _Tad_ , about his threats to put you back in your place before you’re even off the bottom rung of the ladder.

You run the back of your hand over your mouth, not for the first time since you’ve been home. Your cell is clutched in your hands. It’s the cell Tad himself gave you, about a year ago, back when he was far less monstrous and you were still content to let him disrespect you. _“The way things were”_ he’d lamented, as if those days were any better than they are now. You were never a healthy couple to start with; for Tad to act like you ever were is beyond you. You remember a time when he used to be the _only_ contact in your phone, and now he’s the only number you’ve blocked.

You so dearly, desperately want to call Gansey, just to hear his voice and share in a little of his peace, but you don’t. Every time you almost give in and bring up his number, you hastily back onto the main screen, because you’ve already dragged Gansey into enough of this mess already. You can’t erase the memory of how _upset_ he looked yesterday, to see you hurt, to see you suffering at the hands of others, to be unable to help you. Your heart aches unbearably whenever you remember that face; you don’t want to put him through all that again. You love him too much.

You don’t doubt that, if you asked, Gansey and Ronan and Noah would come to solve all your problems for you in a heartbeat. But you don’t want that. _It’s my problem, not theirs._

You wince at a sharp laugh from inside the double-wide and you turn your head to peer inside. Your mother and father are sat on the lumpy couch and watching television, as usual, blissfully unaware of the ordeal you’ve been through, as usual. You involuntarily think some more about what would happen if your parents were to ever find out that the total on your pay stubs does not even remotely match the total you hand them each week for daily expenses – for bills, for groceries, for booze – and you woefully accept that Tad is right. You would lose everything— _everything—_ that you’ve worked so hard for this past half-year. All the money you’ve saved for next term’s school fees wouldn’t even cover the hospital bills by the time your father was through with you. He’d be so mad he could cripple you.

Your mother stands from the couch; your body _heaves_ with dread, but she just fetches the pack of cigarettes she’d left in the kitchenette. You were afraid she’d try to make a call; you had unhooked the landline the minute you made it home, just in case Tad would make good on his threat. Just in case he’d call to tell your father to check your pay stubs a little more closely, to hunt in your bedroom for your letter of acceptance. You don’t know if Tad’s tried to ring, but you don’t intend to find out. You can only hope, for now at least, until you implement a solution more long-term, that your parents don’t notice no one’s called them.

You look up as another car passes your drive. For the first five black cars, panic had spiked in you to think that they were Tad’s Bentley, but by the next twenty or so you had calmed down. You look now, expecting the car to drive on as all others have done before it, but this one doesn’t. It parks at the very nose of the drive, next to the battered post boxes. You squint as you peer into the night, trying to make out the arrangement of taillights, but the car shuts off too quick. The driver’s door opens, slams. A figure in the distance stomps down your drive.

You swallow, your heart racing. You clutch your phone for support, because it’s the only support you have. _You can do this._

You stand up. Your over-worked muscles wobble, but still you walk to meet him.

It’s undeniably Tad, even though his face is a lot more shadowed with bruises. He sees you coming towards him and stops, turns and wanders back to his car like he expects you to follow him. It lights a spark of _hate_ in you, and now you’re burning with it. You want to encase yourself in such a fire. You want his hand to blister when he tries to touch you. _You can do this._

He’s leaning on the side of his car, arms crossed, when you finally stop a safe distance away from him. He looks no worse for wear than you last saw him, and you don’t feel a scrap of sympathy for him. You think to yourself that you should’ve kneed his groin harder, so he would’ve felt it for _days_ , as keenly as you still feel his knuckles on your face.

_You can do this._

“Tad,” you greet coolly, and it immediately throws him off. He looks furiously baffled to see that you’re not intimidated by him, after what he almost did to you, after what he threatened he’d do to you.

He’s already figured it out. That you were waiting for him. “You disconnected your landline,” he accuses.

You feel spliced bursts of _relief_ and _panic,_ but you swiftly bury them all. “Oh, there’ve been some issues with the phone,” you say, and his eyes narrow down to slits. He doesn’t like this, what you’re doing. He doesn’t like that you’re subtly positioning yourself as the more powerful one in this situation.

The truth is, you’re still afraid, but you don’t let him see that. You’ve been coaching yourself for the past hour or so not to respond to any threatening stances or ferocious glares. You’ve mentally prepared for this and you know you can do it and you’re _ready._

He appears helplessly conflicted for a moment. He opens his mouth to talk but you cut him off: “If you tell my dad I’m in Aglionby and withholding money from him for tuition fees, then I will tell your dad you’re gay. I have more than enough evidence” – you hold out your cell for him to see but it stays well out of his reach – “of our incriminating correspondence. And I’m sure if I told your dad to check your internet history, to look in the locked box under your bed, there would be too much you can’t explain.”

He’s speechless. You can’t even hear him breathe. He’s a perfect picture of shock.

You feel eerily calm and it carries in your voice. You feel indifferent to all the other threats put against you, and you recognise it as a feeling of _control._ You feel invincible and untouchable and impenetrable in a way you never thought you could without hiding who you are.

“You have a lot more to lose than I do, Carruthers.” His eyebrows pull together, irked; he doesn’t like that you’ve called him that. “It’s your choice. What’s the worst that’ll happen to me? I’ll get a black eye and drop out of Aglionby and resume a mediocre life in Henrietta, with my guaranteed mechanic apprenticeship. What’s the worst that’ll happen to you? You’ll lose your trust fund? You’ll be disowned? You’ll join your cousin in conversion therapy?” He winces like you’ve slapped him. “Have every sexual impulse stamped out of you? Be permanently fucked up for life?”

He can’t hold your gaze anymore; he abruptly looks away. He doesn’t let any expression other than indignation cross his face, but you can tell from the doomed sag of his shoulders that he knows you’re right. He knows he has so much further to fall than you do.

“ _Fine_ ,” he eventually grits out, between clenched teeth, furiously resigned. Beneath the bruises, his cheeks look hot with humiliation. Tears shine in his eyes. He still won’t look at you. “I’ll leave you the fuck alone then.”

“No,” you say, and he baulks like you have to be _kidding_ , but you press on. “I don’t feel safe around you. I want you to leave Aglionby.”

You almost lose your cool; you start as Tad throws up his head too suddenly and shouts, “Oh come on—you can’t be _serious!”_

You take a deep breath. “Drop out,” you say, and Tad stares at you. “ _Please,_ ” you suddenly bark – he jolts – but it’s far from a plea; you say ‘please’ in the way Tad says ‘please’ – like an order, like a demand. “Drop out, Carruthers. Go to Mountain View. You don’t belong in a place like Aglionby anyway. They’ll eat you alive.”

He throws you one wildly bewildered look, because he _recognises the words,_ and then it hits him where he’s heard them before. His own mouth, months ago now. The thoughtless words he’d said that first tipped you off to how _bad_ for you he was. The words that ate into you like an _acid_ , because you couldn’t just let them go, after you’d worked _so hard_ to have the promise of a future where no one could make you feel as _shit_ about yourself as people like Tad Carruthers did.

He turns away from you but you grab him; the way he flinches under _your_ touch for once leaves you boundlessly satisfied. “So you’ll drop out, right?”

He shoves you away and you let him, stepping back. He hasn’t so much as moved but now he’s panting—or is that sobbing? He swipes at his bruised eyes, over and over, outrageously upset. You don’t know who he’s upset with. You, or himself, or Gansey, or his father, or the world, or the way he has so monumentally, catastrophically fucked over his chances with you.

You glance away, your heart wavering. You _hate_ that he can’t make this easier for you. You hate that, beneath the threats and the violent impulses and the rampant bigotry, he’s just a kid who’s too scared to be himself, who doesn’t want to be alone, who’s no less human than you are. You hate that he can still make you feel this way.

“You’ve got ‘til the end of the term,” you say quietly. “To find a new school and transfer. Please don’t talk to me again.”

 _“Got it,”_ he bites, trying to convey annoyance, but his voice is far too raspy with tears. You watch as he trudges miserably around to his driver’s side and climbs in, much like one would climb into their own open grave. He settles in, he starts up the car. He throws one last heartbroken look at you over his shoulder, but you have nothing left for him but pity and resentment. He has a look in his face like there’s something he desperately wants to say to you, that isn’t just _fuck you_ a million times over. But, after a few seconds, he finally looks away and sharply releases the breath he’s been holding, disappointed and defeated. After all this time, he still can’t just say what he wants.

The Bentley charges back onto the dark road to town. It’s only when the taillights are just little red glints in the distance that you feel like you can _breathe_ again _,_ and the relief rushes in so hard and so fast that it almost knocks you off your feet—or perhaps that’s the exhaustion. You don’t know. You don’t care. You need _sleep,_ and it’s all you can do to carry your worn-out body back to your room and throw it at your bed, still dressed.

You fall asleep to a whole new feeling that curls warmly inside your chest. Pride.

\----

As the year passes, a number of things happen, all in blurry succession. Tad Carruthers transfers somewhere west and you never hear from him again. You find a 400 year-old Camaro wheel at the bottom of a lake on one of the many Glendower excursions. You maintain a 4.0 GPA in a school where the course work is a lot more exhaustive than you’re used to. You spend an entire weekend at Monmouth, just sleeping. The lacrosse team, now without Tad’s instigation, leaves you in peace. You get another raise on one of your three jobs. Gansey fucks you for the first time and you last – much to Ronan’s and Noah’s amusement – only two minutes. You move out of your parent’s trailer and into a cheap flat (with no forwarding address) mere days after you turn eighteen. You spend Christmas at Gansey’s family estate and make some valuable contacts. You fill out college applications to Ivy League institutes. You’re made Valedictorian and barely stammer at all in your speech. Gansey kisses you an hour before your flight to D.C. and fiercely embraces you and tells you that he’s _so_ , so proud of you. You let him see you cry.

On the plane, you noisily take off and watch the dusty, barren Henrietta landscape stay behind you. You still have tears in your eyes. You’re left with a single line of thought: _I did it. I got it. I’m going to make something of myself._

You still don’t have a car to call your own, but you think that this outcome is infinitely better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :'D
> 
> erm just a head's up - me or my wife or both will probably write, like, an origin fic?? Of how Tad and Adam first met? so ye lmao I'm not through w Tad Carruthers just yet :P
> 
> come bother (read as: delight) me at [tumblr](http://telekinesiskid.tumblr.com/)


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